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General => General Discussion => Topic started by: AndyDT on December 06, 2010, 02:37:23 PM
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On a scale of 1 to 10. Rating and thoughts (if you want) are much appreciated, thanks. If it's less than a 10 for you, then please say what it would need to really work for you.
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Pros: good imagery, good vocabulary
Cons: couple grammatical errors, couple run-on sentences
You use more words and phrases than necessary. You can be imaginitive while still being succinct.
Here's once sentence, for example:
"As they moved to the top of the hill they broke through the low lying mist that covered the flat heathland and could see the vast region within which they had eked out their ongoing livelihood and persisted for weeks with scarcity and hardship."
You have some great words here. However, I can't breathe since it's such a long sentence, with no breaks at all! You could throw in a period after "mist" and make it two sentences, at least.
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Overall, good. The one thing I would do is try to incorporate all the senses in your imagery. It will give it a more living and colorful effect.
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Overall, good. The one thing I would do is try to incorporate all the senses in your imagery. It will give it a more living and colorful effect.
This is good. Also, I find it a bit top-heavy and moralizing. Perhaps you ought to show the people over the long term that the wolf isn't throwing up smokescreens rather than just letting everyone know from the getgo.
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My concern is similar to Brother H's. Some of the sentences are so long as to be confusing. The one that I had singled out was: The wolf would again receive from nature and intuit a way forward with its faculties that were a part of and connected to the same whole and which it had explained to Carl were found too in human in some ways to an even more acute degree of power. It needs to be broken up a bit. Too many concepts for one sentence.
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Very useful comments thanks. I never realised how hard it was to write until I tried. I find it easy to keep repeating words and have had to start learning punctuation. Also, American punctuation can be slightly different from British.
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It's good imagery, but like others have said, I think the structure needs a bit of work. It's a bit too descriptive for my tastes, sort of like a contemporary Tolken in that aspect. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, though.
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Thanks. People say "show don't tell" but if you look at old books they're very descriptive as you say so I wonder what's best sometimes.
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Thanks. People say "show don't tell" but if you look at old books they're very descriptive as you say so I wonder what's best sometimes.
Whichever you enjoy writing the most.
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Thanks. People say "show don't tell" but if you look at old books they're very descriptive as you say so I wonder what's best sometimes.
This, actually. Write what YOU would want to read. If you do that, other people will inevitably like it too.
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It still has to draw people in with action though don't you think?
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Not action in terms of fight scenes or anything, but just scenes in general. If I were you, instead of this...
He had learnt from his short but unbroken and unforgettable time with the wolf that life could throw obstacles, threats, separation, isolation - even tragedy - in one's path but the wolf had endured and not strayed from its core instinct as one of his kind. The wolf had not betrayed its nature, or invented smokescreens or false ideals such as a self-pitying story that aloneness was its destiny.
...I'd have the main character recall a memory about the wolf the shows how enduring the wolf is. That's just me though.
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Sorry....I have to chime in here. This thread reminds me of a trip to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth removed, and the first thing the dentist tells you is to NOT stick your tongue in the hole. But of course, the urge is overwhelming, and you do it anyway. So, as much as I avoid threads like these like the plague.....the urge is overwhelming.
I have been asked dozens of times here, usually by PM, to read or critique peoples work. I always politely decline. I get asked regularly by other people too. Sometimes people send me whole manuscripts in the mail through my publisher; or even worse I get asked by people who know me. I understand why, we all want to know we have created something that others will appreciate. I always refrain for two reasons; the first being that I don't want to crush anyones creative spirit, or upset anyone, and the second is that I don't really have time. I'm too busy with my own work to review someone elses. It would be like a musician working on an album, and they are repeatedly asked to review some other musicians music. Professional musician friends of mine experience this all the time. Fans of theirs send them music to listen to, and while flattering, they don't offer any technical advice for the same reasons I just shared.
The point of all of this is I will impart a couple of tidbits of my own personal practice.
1) I NEVER, and I mean never, let anyone (wife, kid, friends, neighbor, publisher, agent, editor, dog, cat..get the picture?) read any part of any thing I am writing until I am completely satisified and finished with it. EVER. Why? Everyone has an opinion, and everyone is a critic. When you ask someone to read something you have written and to tell you what they think, they hear "Tell me what you might think I've done wrong?"
2) I NEVER write anything with anyone besides myself in mind as the reader. Do not write to impress anyone. That's fake and phony, and boring as hell. Every full-time author that I know who is published, including myself, have all written things that will never get published that we personally like more than some of our published stuff.
3) NEVER write anything with the sole purpose of getting published. Write because you like to write. I have dozens of stories that I have started to write, and have put down because I have lost interest at the moment. There are probably a hundred or so short stories that I have written that didn't start out to be short stories. The story decides where it will go, not me. Write because you like to write. I hear people ALL the time say, "I'd like to write a book someday." Wrong premise. Just write a story. If it becomes a book, great. I write stories, and publish books. Big difference in my opinion.
Anyway, I cringe when I see threads like this. Hope I haven't pissed in anyones Wheaties. While I know everyone who offered an opinion was trying to be helpful, my advice to Andy or anyone who wants to write, is to stick to the three things I just listed, and keep writing. When you've finished the story and want to share, post it and say "Read what I have written." To do otherwise opens yourself up to writing what you think people want to read. Bad mistake.
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Sorry....I have to chime in here. This thread reminds me of a trip to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth removed, and the first thing the dentist tells you is to NOT stick your tongue in the hole. But of course, the urge is overwhelming, and you do it anyway. So, as much as I avoid threads like these like the plague.....the urge is overwhelming.
I have been asked dozens of times here, usually by PM, to read or critique peoples work. I always politely decline. I get asked regularly by other people too. Sometimes people send me whole manuscripts in the mail through my publisher; or even worse I get asked by people who know me. I understand why, we all want to know we have created something that others will appreciate. I always refrain for two reasons; the first being that I don't want to crush anyones creative spirit, or upset anyone, and the second is that I don't really have time. I'm too busy with my own work to review someone elses. It would be like a musician working on an album, and they are repeatedly asked to review some other musicians music. Professional musician friends of mine experience this all the time. Fans of theirs send them music to listen to, and while flattering, they don't offer any technical advice for the same reasons I just shared.
The point of all of this is I will impart a couple of tidbits of my own personal practice.
1) I NEVER, and I mean never, let anyone (wife, kid, friends, neighbor, publisher, agent, editor, dog, cat..get the picture?) read any part of any thing I am writing until I am completely satisified and finished with it. EVER. Why? Everyone has an opinion, and everyone is a critic. When you ask someone to read something you have written and to tell you what they think, they hear "Tell me what you might think I've done wrong?"
2) I NEVER write anything with anyone besides myself in mind as the reader. Do not write to impress anyone. That's fake and phony, and boring as hell. Every full-time author that I know who is published, including myself, have all written things that will never get published that we personally like more than some of our published stuff.
3) NEVER write anything with the sole purpose of getting published. Write because you like to write. I have dozens of stories that I have started to write, and have put down because I have lost interest at the moment. There are probably a hundred or so short stories that I have written that didn't start out to be short stories. The story decides where it will go, not me. Write because you like to write. I hear people ALL the time say, "I'd like to write a book someday." Wrong premise. Just write a story. If it becomes a book, great. I write stories, and publish books. Big difference in my opinion.
Anyway, I cringe when I see threads like this. Hope I haven't pissed in anyones Wheaties. While I know everyone who offered an opinion was trying to be helpful, my advice to Andy or anyone who wants to write, is to stick to the three things I just listed, and keep writing. When you've finished the story and want to share, post it and say "Read what I have written." To do otherwise opens yourself up to writing what you think people want to read. Bad mistake.
You know bud, we mere mortals do occasionally need our back patted. Someone looking for a bit of advise, or an atta'boy, is a normal fact of human nature. If it makes you cringe, don't respond. I am not one to front a forum argument, but the tone of your post was very harsh.
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Agreed. Most occupations involve a learning period, and the advice of others is the best teacher. It is very true in my job. I learn through the teachings of countless chefs before me, and if anyone less talented than me ask for advice, I am more than happy to give it.
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Obviously, you missed the point. If you write to please other people all the time, you lose perspective, and stifle your own creativity. In the analogy that SixD gave, he sought the advice of a professional. The use of agents, editors and the like. I doubt very much that many people here qualify as an editor, or a literary agent. Again, my post was not meant to piss anyone off. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Including me.
So specifically for Lonestar, I didn't much appreciate your "mere mortal" comment. I never said or implied that I was superior in anyway by my post. I am a writer. I have a great deal of experience and only imparted my own personal opinion. You mentioned you sought out the advice of professional chefs, in essence, people who are qualified to help you get better at your craft. Do you cook because you're passionate about cooking, or because you want to please everyone all the time? If it's the latter, you're probably not much of cook, or at least one that has reached his full potential. If you read my post, I acknowledged that we like to know people appreciate our work, but if we get too hung up on the opinions of others, we lose sight of what is important to ourselves. If you worked your ass off on a goulash, and half way through asked a bunch of random people to taste it and got everything from, "You should bake cakes instead", to "Why did you use so much paprika?", then you run the risk of focusing on what THEY feel is best, and less on the fact that you just like to make goulash, before you had even completed the recipe. Maybe that was not the best analogy, but as someone who is passionate about my craft, I get a little annoyed when people write to please others. And it's an easy trap to fall into when you illicit advice from strangers, especially early in the process. All I was saying was, don't let that drive be dampened by the opinions of others and let their opinions determine how or what Andy, or anyone else writes. It can kill creativity with a quickness.
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Tempus, I was out of line with the "mortal" thing, and do apologize. As for what I do, yes, I am passionate about it, but also do it to please people. Seeing a plate come back, licked clean, gives me great pleasure, and the look on a persons face when they take that first bite, that look of orgasmic culinary delight, is like no other. I do agree with you about doing it for yourself, but I don't think that a non-professional asking for a touch of input is as out of line as your post stated. to me, it's just a guy looking for a combo of the old "you did nice, but..."
(BTW, your Huskies going for seven with time running out against my Bears, WTF!!!!)
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Actually, I got advice from everyone who was better than me (including well-read amateurs). It's hard to find professionals to give you the time of day when you don't have much experience. I did take your point and agree with your post, but feel you only look at the downsides of seeking advice. There are positives as well - or at least, for those of us who are still learning, there are.
In any case, we're cool. Opine away.
I'm totally cool. :biggrin:
Personally, I feel the best way to become a better writer is to continue to write. Writing is a very personal thing. Just like a musician who creates music. If you were writing a song, and every day, especially in the beginning, asked people what they thought of it, it would be easy to get discouraged, or write their song, or even ultimately give up. If you kept working at it though each day, you would begin to see the song develop that you liked. I don't mean as a writer that you can just put random words on paper each day and expect to get better. Good writing is the result of much practice and hard work. This fact should encourage people who want to write: it means that the ability to write well is not a gift that some people are born with, and certainly not a privilege extended to only a few. If you're willing to work, you can improve your writing. As you sharpen your skills, you will gain confidence and enjoy writing more than you did before. Writing is not easy. To me that is far more important to becoming a good writer than asking people to dissect your work. That's all I'm sayin'.
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Tempus, I was out of line with the "mortal" thing, and do apologize. As for what I do, yes, I am passionate about it, but also do it to please people. Seeing a plate come back, licked clean, gives me great pleasure, and the look on a persons face when they take that first bite, that look of orgasmic culinary delight, is like no other. I do agree with you about doing it for yourself, but I don't think that a non-professional asking for a touch of input is as out of line as your post stated. to me, it's just a guy looking for a combo of the old "you did nice, but..."
(BTW, your Huskies going for seven with time running out against my Bears, WTF!!!!)
No worries, I took umbrage, but held no grudge. :biggrin:
As for the Huskies, what can I say? Sark, has them at .500 when everyone thought they were done awhile back. They've been playing for respectability and it's paid off. They're still a young team, though I hate to lose Locker next season. And, sorry Andy for discussing college football in your thread. :)
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I agree you need to write for yourself... but seeking advice and opinions can't be a bad thing in my opinion. You just need to know how to handle those opinions. You don't have to adjust your writing to every piece of advice you get, but getting some feedback on your writing can be a very helpful thing. You just have to keep a healthy perspective on it and remember they are just opinions... but sometimes we need other people to help us see what we might not be able to see by ourselves.
Just my two cents...
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Tempus, I was out of line with the "mortal" thing, and do apologize. As for what I do, yes, I am passionate about it, but also do it to please people. Seeing a plate come back, licked clean, gives me great pleasure, and the look on a persons face when they take that first bite, that look of orgasmic culinary delight, is like no other. I do agree with you about doing it for yourself, but I don't think that a non-professional asking for a touch of input is as out of line as your post stated. to me, it's just a guy looking for a combo of the old "you did nice, but..."
(BTW, your Huskies going for seven with time running out against my Bears, WTF!!!!)
No worries, I took umbrage, but held no grudge. :biggrin:
As for the Huskies, what can I say? Sark, has them at .500 when everyone thought they were done awhile back. They've been playing for respectability and it's paid off. They're still a young team, though I hate to lose Locker next season. And, sorry Andy for discussing college football in your thread. :)
*looks up umbrage in dictionary* :biggrin:
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As humans, we develop both through individual strife and guidance from outsiders. As a people, we grow over time, because information and skill is passed down. To refrain from teaching another person how to do something if you are qualified is to refrain from helping to progress humanity. Imagine if it was illegal to teach a musical instrument, or critique another person's playing. That's exactly what this is like.
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I love British writers. :D
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Sorry....I have to chime in here. This thread reminds me of a trip to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth removed, and the first thing the dentist tells you is to NOT stick your tongue in the hole. But of course, the urge is overwhelming, and you do it anyway. So, as much as I avoid threads like these like the plague.....the urge is overwhelming.
I have been asked dozens of times here, usually by PM, to read or critique peoples work. I always politely decline. I get asked regularly by other people too. Sometimes people send me whole manuscripts in the mail through my publisher; or even worse I get asked by people who know me. I understand why, we all want to know we have created something that others will appreciate. I always refrain for two reasons; the first being that I don't want to crush anyones creative spirit, or upset anyone, and the second is that I don't really have time. I'm too busy with my own work to review someone elses. It would be like a musician working on an album, and they are repeatedly asked to review some other musicians music. Professional musician friends of mine experience this all the time. Fans of theirs send them music to listen to, and while flattering, they don't offer any technical advice for the same reasons I just shared.
The point of all of this is I will impart a couple of tidbits of my own personal practice.
1) I NEVER, and I mean never, let anyone (wife, kid, friends, neighbor, publisher, agent, editor, dog, cat..get the picture?) read any part of any thing I am writing until I am completely satisified and finished with it. EVER. Why? Everyone has an opinion, and everyone is a critic. When you ask someone to read something you have written and to tell you what they think, they hear "Tell me what you might think I've done wrong?"
2) I NEVER write anything with anyone besides myself in mind as the reader. Do not write to impress anyone. That's fake and phony, and boring as hell. Every full-time author that I know who is published, including myself, have all written things that will never get published that we personally like more than some of our published stuff.
3) NEVER write anything with the sole purpose of getting published. Write because you like to write. I have dozens of stories that I have started to write, and have put down because I have lost interest at the moment. There are probably a hundred or so short stories that I have written that didn't start out to be short stories. The story decides where it will go, not me. Write because you like to write. I hear people ALL the time say, "I'd like to write a book someday." Wrong premise. Just write a story. If it becomes a book, great. I write stories, and publish books. Big difference in my opinion.
Anyway, I cringe when I see threads like this. Hope I haven't pissed in anyones Wheaties. While I know everyone who offered an opinion was trying to be helpful, my advice to Andy or anyone who wants to write, is to stick to the three things I just listed, and keep writing. When you've finished the story and want to share, post it and say "Read what I have written." To do otherwise opens yourself up to writing what you think people want to read. Bad mistake.
Also, great post. I REALLY wish I could find out who you are 'cause I totally wanna take one of your books for a spin. :biggrin: As a fellow writer (although obviously on the amateur end of things), I would find it to be a fun and informative experience.
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Good writing is all about good editing. If you can edit yourself, you'll be all the better for it. I realize some writers get paid to churn out 400 pages of poorly written, half-plagiarized crap about Dungeons and Dragons or Star Wars, but not everyone has an anonymous editor-slave to make their work presentable. Of course, if you can write 4 shitty novels a year one of them is bound to get accepted somewhere, so that's always an option. But I feel writing is more enjoyable for me when I work on something that I feel is really worth doing, even if it means I spend tens of hours per page.
Also, have a circle of writers you talk to and meet with somewhat frequently. I find that helps a lot. That said, if anyone here at DTF wants to start a private writers group, I'd be down.
I REALLY wish I could find out who you are 'cause I totally wanna take one of your books for a spin.
But what if he's James Frey :P
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Granted I feel like one has to put some shit out at least to build a portfolio, and so you have an assurance that things you write will get published. All the while I will work on my magnum opus. :)
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Sorry....I have to chime in here. This thread reminds me of a trip to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth removed, and the first thing the dentist tells you is to NOT stick your tongue in the hole. But of course, the urge is overwhelming, and you do it anyway. So, as much as I avoid threads like these like the plague.....the urge is overwhelming.
I have been asked dozens of times here, usually by PM, to read or critique peoples work. I always politely decline. I get asked regularly by other people too. Sometimes people send me whole manuscripts in the mail through my publisher; or even worse I get asked by people who know me. I understand why, we all want to know we have created something that others will appreciate. I always refrain for two reasons; the first being that I don't want to crush anyones creative spirit, or upset anyone, and the second is that I don't really have time. I'm too busy with my own work to review someone elses. It would be like a musician working on an album, and they are repeatedly asked to review some other musicians music. Professional musician friends of mine experience this all the time. Fans of theirs send them music to listen to, and while flattering, they don't offer any technical advice for the same reasons I just shared.
The point of all of this is I will impart a couple of tidbits of my own personal practice.
1) I NEVER, and I mean never, let anyone (wife, kid, friends, neighbor, publisher, agent, editor, dog, cat..get the picture?) read any part of any thing I am writing until I am completely satisified and finished with it. EVER. Why? Everyone has an opinion, and everyone is a critic. When you ask someone to read something you have written and to tell you what they think, they hear "Tell me what you might think I've done wrong?"
2) I NEVER write anything with anyone besides myself in mind as the reader. Do not write to impress anyone. That's fake and phony, and boring as hell. Every full-time author that I know who is published, including myself, have all written things that will never get published that we personally like more than some of our published stuff.
3) NEVER write anything with the sole purpose of getting published. Write because you like to write. I have dozens of stories that I have started to write, and have put down because I have lost interest at the moment. There are probably a hundred or so short stories that I have written that didn't start out to be short stories. The story decides where it will go, not me. Write because you like to write. I hear people ALL the time say, "I'd like to write a book someday." Wrong premise. Just write a story. If it becomes a book, great. I write stories, and publish books. Big difference in my opinion.
Anyway, I cringe when I see threads like this. Hope I haven't pissed in anyones Wheaties. While I know everyone who offered an opinion was trying to be helpful, my advice to Andy or anyone who wants to write, is to stick to the three things I just listed, and keep writing. When you've finished the story and want to share, post it and say "Read what I have written." To do otherwise opens yourself up to writing what you think people want to read. Bad mistake.
I value the feedback and people have been very helpful. The story is already finished. I asked you for feedback and said I can understand you being too busy to offer anything.
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Rather than start a new thread, I figured I'd just post it here. This is a very short "story" I wrote after getting off work today.
My Walk
It's said that every cloud has a silver lining. I think for most of us, this is true. Sometimes, I think, you just have to look a little harder for that silver lining.
My cloud happens to be a transmission that I can't afford to replace. The silver lining is my walk to work. I've been walking to work for several weeks now, often agitated by both the time it takes out of my schedule and by the lack of climate control. Every day is the same. Make it to the first stop light. Wait for the “walk” light to appear on the pole, then rush to cross the street. Make it to the stop sign, to the next light, and the next, and so on.
Today was different. Today, I paid attention.
For the past few weeks, I was so encumbered by the weight of my situation that I never took advantage of the fact that the world slowed down. Today, I began my walk as any other day. Perhaps it was to alleviate the usual feeling of repetition that my mind veered from its usual course.
I left my house and began to make my way down my street. I noticed things I had never bothered to care about. No - I didn't just notice them... I began to appreciate them. I saw the withered leaves losing their grasp from the trees they had known for so long. I saw dogs in their yards, burrowing into the ground, hoping to finally catch that elusive gopher. I saw my neighbors enjoying both their days off and each others' company.
I turned onto the busier street in town and noticed other things, as well. I saw the bustling flow of traffic. I saw drivers honking at each other because of the minor inconvenience of waiting more than a second at an intersection. I saw people who, through the wonder of automobiles, forgot about those things I was enjoying – those things that I had also enjoyed in my childhood. It was as if my attention to the smaller things in life was connecting me to that time that I yearn for so much.
When I was a teenager, I would be irritated by my grandparent's refusal to drive “five over” on the highway. I couldn't grasp the concept that they were “enjoying the drive.” Now, in my adulthood, I feel like I am connected to them, much like being awed by these little things connected me to my early childhood.
Today, during my walk, I became part of the world, rather than hurrying through it. It terrifies me to think that growing up is forgetting about everything between points A and B. You see, when the world consists only of destinations, the world has nothing to offer.
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You're a pretty good writer, Guitarded. I especially liked:
Today was different. Today, I paid attention.
A whole paragraph comprising two itty bitty sentences. Conciseness is very powerful, and something many amateur writers either forget about or look past.
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You're a pretty good writer, Guitarded. I especially liked:
Today was different. Today, I paid attention.
A whole paragraph comprising two itty bitty sentences. Conciseness is very powerful, and something many amateur writers either forget about or look past.
I used to (especially in high school, because standards are so strict) get hung up on structure and what is deemed acceptable. Finally, I figured out "Fuck it, it's my story, I'll do it my way." I guess stuff like the aforementioned paragraph just kind of came with that.
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Good writing is all about good editing. If you can edit yourself, you'll be all the better for it. I realize some writers get paid to churn out 400 pages of poorly written, half-plagiarized crap about Dungeons and Dragons or Star Wars, but not everyone has an anonymous editor-slave to make their work presentable. Of course, if you can write 4 shitty novels a year one of them is bound to get accepted somewhere, so that's always an option. But I feel writing is more enjoyable for me when I work on something that I feel is really worth doing, even if it means I spend tens of hours per page.
Also, have a circle of writers you talk to and meet with somewhat frequently. I find that helps a lot. That said, if anyone here at DTF wants to start a private writers group, I'd be down.
I'm down too.
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In my experience, showing-not-telling is heavily preferred by literary agents; telling is too passive.
I have some suggestions, but I wouldn't read if you're thin-skinned. I spend a lot of time reading and critiquing others' work (usually informally), and I've probably lost the capacity to be tactful rather than direct. So, apologies if I'm blunt; I don't mean it badly. :)
I found a lot of your sentences too long. Assuming this is a start to a novel, you're info-dumping early on ("the vast region within which they had eked out their ongoing livelihood and persisted for weeks with scarcity and hardship") - that's backstory and it can wait until later, if you need it at all. Offered too early, this kind of info puts readers off.
Some of the description wasn't needed, e.g. "The wolf observed the world stretched out before them, looking periodically in the different directions of still and receding vast landscape that presented itself. A look to the sky showed the direction of light and the position of the sun and let the wolf detect and breathe the wind." This is overwriting, really, and it's not focused on a very interesting part of the story - nothing is specifically going on. The best advice for introductions - which I assume this is? - is to jump into a point of action and grab the reader's attention right away. Where is the first gripping, exciting part of your story? Even if it's 5 pages in, have a good look at those first 5 pages. What do you really need to keep? It's amazing how often you only need to keep a couple of sentences, or even less.
Technically, I'd say your writing shows some promise, but this as it stands is about two thirds longer than it needs to be.
But hey, the great thing about writing is that it's yours, and you don't have to give a toss about my opinion unless you think it's worthwhile, so feel free to totally ignore me. :P
Thanks. This is an extract from a late chapter of the book. The wolf is garnering information and I'm trying to describe the view across the landscape.
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Good writing is all about good editing. If you can edit yourself, you'll be all the better for it. I realize some writers get paid to churn out 400 pages of poorly written, half-plagiarized crap about Dungeons and Dragons or Star Wars, but not everyone has an anonymous editor-slave to make their work presentable. Of course, if you can write 4 shitty novels a year one of them is bound to get accepted somewhere, so that's always an option. But I feel writing is more enjoyable for me when I work on something that I feel is really worth doing, even if it means I spend tens of hours per page.
Also, have a circle of writers you talk to and meet with somewhat frequently. I find that helps a lot. That said, if anyone here at DTF wants to start a private writers group, I'd be down.
I'm down too.
Considering what you quoted, I lol'd at your edit. :P
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Rather than start a new thread, I figured I'd just post it here. This is a very short "story" I wrote after getting off work today.
My Walk
It's said that every cloud has a silver lining. I think for most of us, this is true. Sometimes, I think, you just have to look a little harder for that silver lining.
My cloud happens to be a transmission that I can't afford to replace. The silver lining is my walk to work. I've been walking to work for several weeks now, often agitated by both the time it takes out of my schedule and by the lack of climate control. Every day is the same. Make it to the first stop light. Wait for the “walk” light to appear on the pole, then rush to cross the street. Make it to the stop sign, to the next light, and the next, and so on.
Today was different. Today, I paid attention.
For the past few weeks, I was so encumbered by the weight of my situation that I never took advantage of the fact that the world slowed down. Today, I began my walk as any other day. Perhaps it was to alleviate the usual feeling of repetition that my mind veered from its usual course.
I left my house and began to make my way down my street. I noticed things I had never bothered to care about. No - I didn't just notice them... I began to appreciate them. I saw the withered leaves losing their grasp from the trees they had known for so long. I saw dogs in their yards, burrowing into the ground, hoping to finally catch that elusive gopher. I saw my neighbors enjoying both their days off and each others' company.
I turned onto the busier street in town and noticed other things, as well. I saw the bustling flow of traffic. I saw drivers honking at each other because of the minor inconvenience of waiting more than a second at an intersection. I saw people who, through the wonder of automobiles, forgot about those things I was enjoying – those things that I had also enjoyed in my childhood. It was as if my attention to the smaller things in life was connecting me to that time that I yearn for so much.
When I was a teenager, I would be irritated by my grandparent's refusal to drive “five over” on the highway. I couldn't grasp the concept that they were “enjoying the drive.” Now, in my adulthood, I feel like I am connected to them, much like being awed by these little things connected me to my early childhood.
Today, during my walk, I became part of the world, rather than hurrying through it. It terrifies me to think that growing up is forgetting about everything between points A and B. You see, when the world consists only of destinations, the world has nothing to offer.
That really seems to work as a moral message. On a technical note - don't some people complain when you start sentences the same again and again?
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Rather than start a new thread, I figured I'd just post it here. This is a very short "story" I wrote after getting off work today.
My Walk
It's said that every cloud has a silver lining. I think for most of us, this is true. Sometimes, I think, you just have to look a little harder for that silver lining.
My cloud happens to be a transmission that I can't afford to replace. The silver lining is my walk to work. I've been walking to work for several weeks now, often agitated by both the time it takes out of my schedule and by the lack of climate control. Every day is the same. Make it to the first stop light. Wait for the “walk” light to appear on the pole, then rush to cross the street. Make it to the stop sign, to the next light, and the next, and so on.
Today was different. Today, I paid attention.
For the past few weeks, I was so encumbered by the weight of my situation that I never took advantage of the fact that the world slowed down. Today, I began my walk as any other day. Perhaps it was to alleviate the usual feeling of repetition that my mind veered from its usual course.
I left my house and began to make my way down my street. I noticed things I had never bothered to care about. No - I didn't just notice them... I began to appreciate them. I saw the withered leaves losing their grasp from the trees they had known for so long. I saw dogs in their yards, burrowing into the ground, hoping to finally catch that elusive gopher. I saw my neighbors enjoying both their days off and each others' company.
I turned onto the busier street in town and noticed other things, as well. I saw the bustling flow of traffic. I saw drivers honking at each other because of the minor inconvenience of waiting more than a second at an intersection. I saw people who, through the wonder of automobiles, forgot about those things I was enjoying – those things that I had also enjoyed in my childhood. It was as if my attention to the smaller things in life was connecting me to that time that I yearn for so much.
When I was a teenager, I would be irritated by my grandparent's refusal to drive “five over” on the highway. I couldn't grasp the concept that they were “enjoying the drive.” Now, in my adulthood, I feel like I am connected to them, much like being awed by these little things connected me to my early childhood.
Today, during my walk, I became part of the world, rather than hurrying through it. It terrifies me to think that growing up is forgetting about everything between points A and B. You see, when the world consists only of destinations, the world has nothing to offer.
That really seems to work as a moral message. On a technical note - don't some people complain when you start sentences the same again and again?
I haven't run into that yet. In this case, though, it was pretty much intentional.
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Got some good ideas from the writing group I go to. Even when you don't get to read your own, you see the criticisms or faults of others writing as much as their strengths.
Just need a couple more people and we can get a writing email list together. ..
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I'm down.
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Great. One more I'd say it would be worth exchanging some pieces of writing.
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Some published authors seem to advise to know which genre and audience you're writing for. But how do you find out genre? A lot of the books I've liked just say "fiction" on the side and are found under general fiction in bookshops. They might have spiritual theme but are labelled fiction.
How do you establish genre? Narrative?
To use a poor example: He was amazed that such things could happen (fantasy) vs He realised it was only a dream (realism)
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Just write whatever you want. Don't worry about what genre it is.
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Some published authors seem to advise to know which genre and audience you're writing for. But how do you find out genre? A lot of the books I've liked just say "fiction" on the side and are found under general fiction in bookshops. They might have spiritual theme but are labelled fiction.
I don't think that's what they mean, judging by the way you said it (I think). I think it means know what you're writing and write it. If you're writing horror, write horror. Don't have the protagonist fall in love with the antagonist in a horror story - that would be silly.
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Some published authors seem to advise to know which genre and audience you're writing for. But how do you find out genre? A lot of the books I've liked just say "fiction" on the side and are found under general fiction in bookshops. They might have spiritual theme but are labelled fiction.
I don't think that's what they mean, judging by the way you said it (I think). I think it means know what you're writing and write it. If you're writing horror, write horror. Don't have the protagonist fall in love with the antagonist in a horror story - that would be silly.
No, never do that to a horror story...
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075686/
:D
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I know you should probably just write what you enjoy but I'm thinking it should be clear what kind of world that's being described. e.g. if a supernatural thing happens then suddenly it's a fantasy and I need to make this clear.
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I know you should probably just write what you enjoy but I'm thinking it should be clear what kind of world that's being described. e.g. if a supernatural thing happens then suddenly it's a fantasy and I need to make this clear.
I think you're looking too deep into it. If a supernatural thing occurs, just establish a logical course of events that lead up to it. There are thousands of stories where supernatural events occur in a non-fantasy setting.
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I started a second novel to work on alongside the main one I'm revising. However, I got bogged down in things I didn't want to write about and 4 chapters in, I haven't got to writing about what I really want to. So I want to re-write it so that straight away the subject matter and style I want to write and the reader to see is clear. The existing material I would hope to use as flashbacks. Any other ideas how I could use what I've alreay written, or any other tips?
P.S. I've re-titled this thread if that's ok? Should it be renamed "DTF official writer's thread"?
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I started a second novel to work on alongside the main one I'm revising. However, I got bogged down in things I didn't want to write about and 4 chapters in, I haven't got to writing about what I really want to. So I want to re-write it so that straight away the subject matter and style I want to write and the reader to see is clear. The existing material I would hope to use as flashbacks. Any other ideas how I could use what I've alreay written, or any other tips?
P.S. I've re-titled this thread if that's ok? Should it be renamed "DTF official writer's thread"?
Well, it should probably be "DTF offficial writers' thread" unless you're just being selfish.
:neverusethis:
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.
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Ok, now maybe we can talk about writing.
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I started a second novel to work on alongside the main one I'm revising. However, I got bogged down in things I didn't want to write about and 4 chapters in, I haven't got to writing about what I really want to. So I want to re-write it so that straight away the subject matter and style I want to write and the reader to see is clear. The existing material I would hope to use as flashbacks. Any other ideas how I could use what I've alreay written, or any other tips?
P.S. I've re-titled this thread if that's ok? Should it be renamed "DTF official writer's thread"?
Are you talking about starting in media res, then using flashbacks to bring the reader up to speed?
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I think so yes otherwise I'm not writing about what I want to.
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If you have a concept that you want to use, just try and view it from a completely different perspective. There's always a way to make a story out of something that you want to write about - the hard part, sometimes, is just figuring out how. Stew on it for a while if you have to; the best stories come from authors who enjoy their own writing.
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If you have a concept that you want to use, just try and view it from a completely different perspective. There's always a way to make a story out of something that you want to write about - the hard part, sometimes, is just figuring out how. Stew on it for a while if you have to; the best stories come from authors who enjoy their own writing.
That's great advice thankyou. I heard about using the existing writing as mental background for the story and discarding it, starting at the end of it. But changing the perspective might help me write exactly what I wanted.
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Went to a writing course this weekend and tried out starting the story from the other perspective. It was fantastic, really what I want to write I think.
Our homework is to write about a character. I'm wondering if this can be an AI character or an animal? This is my interest - I wrote a novel about the latter - and I've read it's ok to do this as all novel writing - until we discover aliens - relates to human and anthropomorphises everything.
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Here's my first chapter layout:
<snip>
I'm trying to add depth and motivation to his character rather than him just meeting the wolf. Any suggestions would be helpful, thanks.
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Personally, I feel the best way to become a better writer is to continue to write.
I believe this here, is the answer to every question for those requesting feedback on their writing skills.
I'm in the process of writing a novel myself, and actually cannot believe how awful my first draft was. Just spending a few hours a day writing has really helped me in the learning process.
I'd love to hear from other people who have their own writing projects. This thread is worthy of a big bump.
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Here's my first chapter layout:
man has flashback about being outdoors with pet dog one day
goes to political campaign meeting and drives through countryside
goes to work the next day and talks to colleague about finding meaning
decides to go on a walk one evening, to rediscover enjoyment
meets wolf
I'm trying to add depth and motivation to his character rather than him just meeting the wolf. Any suggestions would be helpful, thanks.
My question - What's the conflict? It doesn't have to be amped up and hyper-charged like in a movie, but something still needs to be there to drive the story and the character.
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I'd love to be added to any e-mail lists floating around; I've just started writing casually, and have some decent ideas I'd like to throw out (and a couple finished short pieces, if anyones willing to read them). No plans for a novel, but I can share some stories from my Creative Writing course.
I was reading Kurt Vonnegut's "Hocus Pocus" earlier, and for some reason, the way the numbers were written out gave me a decent idea to add to my next piece.
It's written as excerpts from the journals of Sir Jacques de Molay, the last Templar grandmaster, and the anxiety and depression that he feels following the condemnation of his knights. My idea: at some point (either at the beginning or end of the story), de Molay mourns the loss of his "16 bases." That's a clue. Seemingly random numbers and out-of-place capital letters are scattered throughout the journal; arranged in order, they can be translated from hexadecimal, a "16 base" system, into a series of base 10 numbers. Those numbers are matched up with corresponding letters (1 is A, 2 is B, etc.), creating a message in Latin: caret initio et fine. "It lacks a beginning, it lacks an end."
I'm such a nerd. :hat
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Personally, I feel the best way to become a better writer is to continue to write.
I believe this here, is the answer to every question for those requesting feedback on their writing skills.
I'm in the process of writing a novel myself, and actually cannot believe how awful my first draft was. Just spending a few hours a day writing has really helped me in the learning process.
I'd love to hear from other people who have their own writing projects. This thread is worthy of a big bump.
Stephen King says reading is also as essential to writing to becoming a better writer.
Here's my first chapter layout:
man has flashback about being outdoors with pet dog one day
goes to political campaign meeting and drives through countryside
goes to work the next day and talks to colleague about finding meaning
decides to go on a walk one evening, to rediscover enjoyment
meets wolf
I'm trying to add depth and motivation to his character rather than him just meeting the wolf. Any suggestions would be helpful, thanks.
My question - What's the conflict? It doesn't have to be amped up and hyper-charged like in a movie, but something still needs to be there to drive the story and the character.
The conflict is his own isolation. There isn't an antagonist other than his own own self.
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If anybody knows exactly how to replace double quotes with single quotes automatically I'd be grateful.
Apparently UK books use single dialogue quotes and US double quotes.
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Here's my first chapter layout:
man has flashback about being outdoors with pet dog one day
goes to political campaign meeting and drives through countryside
goes to work the next day and talks to colleague about finding meaning
decides to go on a walk one evening, to rediscover enjoyment
meets wolf
I'm trying to add depth and motivation to his character rather than him just meeting the wolf. Any suggestions would be helpful, thanks.
I think that if you ask for inspiration, you'll never find it.
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This is something I came up with off The top of my head.
Michael trudged without resolve. His attire had been soaked for some time now and did not intend to put an end to its absorption. At some time this day, the wanderer had woken up in an empty cathedral. Though it possessed a lone bathroom and a living room large enough to transverse in a couple seconds, Michael was the lone inhabitant. His dwelling was an entire universe in which he could savor solitude. There, his monarchy was undisputed. Presently, however, the kingdom of the single-bedroom-single-bathroom was off in the Old World. Or some ten blocks south of the congregation, the horrendously humid hootenanny Michael had vowed to attend some days ago, in search of an oasis to take refuge from the piercing fluorescent lighting fixtures and wild computer mice of the weekday safari. He had bartered some of his well-earned greenback hide for a ticket to this auto show, and was determined to get his hunt's worth out of this day of gazing at rubber-hooved beasts of burden. Somewhat of an admirer, if not a lover of automobiles, the gazer found comfort in observing Teutonic-made coupes he could rely on meeting again in the fall, sitting in his bosses' reserved spaces. BMW territory was marred by Todd. Michael slinked to the best of his abilities towards a 7 series no one seemed to be minding. He proceeded to the Toyotas. They were next to the one air unit that wasn't taking the Saturday off. Some months later, Michael overheard Todd caterwauling to some fellow about BMW's lack of quality control. Something about a scratch on the bumper. Michael had no new Toyota, but that's not what he wanted, anyhow.
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Giving this a bump instead of starting a new thread. Anyone still interested in sharing here? I have a few things I wouldn't mind putting up.
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Giving this a bump instead of starting a new thread. Anyone still interested in sharing here? I have a few things I wouldn't mind putting up.
I'm not really a writer as much as I am a poet/lyricist, but I have been complimented highly on essays, and my college application essay:
On a dark, March night, I sat in my room, listening to the rain just outside my window. The breath of the rain that night was fresh. Suddenly, the crashing tear of a thunderbolt, less than a mile away, shattered my peaceful mood. The once soothing rain outside became an angry declaration of sorrow, pain, and destruction. Night became death and everything we fear. The safety of my bed was my only redemption. I wanted to be rid of this fear of spontaneous emotional change, so I looked for a way to overcome it.
On a dark, September night, I sat in my room, listening to music, before going to sleep. The music was soothing, yet there was a dark, ominous, and airy atmosphere to the song. Without any notice, the song exploded and became an opus of monumental power. Yet, I did not fear it, as it could not harm me. Hues of purple, blue, red, and yellow filled my mind. A child, exposed to the song for the first time, might fear what he or she is listening to, or they may enjoy it, and it becomes a thing of nostalgia from then on.
You learn to predict things like thunder during rain when musicians and composers of equal insanity implement such spontaneity into their music. Any fear can be extinguished with association; the death of night can become soothing, even while loud and angry. Fears, perhaps ones own imperfection in their profession, can be faced, associating that wall of perfection, impassable, with the concept of a tangent: you can always get better, but you can never become perfect.
Any fear can be extinguished, as one can somehow associate any one thing with anything else.
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I'll join in later. Currently writing the second draft of a novel. Been writing since I was eight-years-old.
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I read through that three times. Each time I felt more of what you were feeling and can certainly understand how correlations to something innocuous tame our most darkest fears.
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Closure
She snorted the last line of cocaine, grabbed her cup of Starbucks and headed out the bedroom door. My voluminous wasteland of irreconcilable desire was growing by the day. What reasons did I have for the old bait and screw? This one left in a fit of anger. My eye was still swollen and my dick felt like it had been squeezed and tugged on by rusty pliers. There were plenty of hard feelings but they seemed unidirectional. I just didn’t give a fuck anymore. That was my reason. I enjoyed the thrill of the chase but the finish line was littered with empty promises and broken hearts. Each woman, or girl in this case, piled on this suffocating burden when they mentioned the word love or relationship or even worse – us. I didn’t want there to be an, us. I didn’t want to wake up the next morning and plan our next date. There needed to be an immediate closure for me once that orgasm came and went.
My friends pleaded with me to find one girl, but how could I lie to myself and pretend that one girl would be enough for me. It would be dry monotony of that same face, that same vagina, night after night. I enjoyed the variation and adventure. It would be similar to eating the same food every day. Would you look forward to eating if you knew it was always going to be the same meal? Now, I can already hear the voices berating me for comparing a person to a piece of food. That is not where I am making the comparison. This is about desire, passion, the fish in the sea, both literally and figuratively, and fucking any one I want.
The sun is peeking above the horizon now. What will this new day bring? I walk into the bathroom to take a piss. I take a long hard look at myself in the mirror and I am content. My morning pot of coffee is awaiting me but I didn’t make it. From the living room my daughter walks in much to my surprise. She looks at me with such contempt and disdain and I realize why. She picks up her bag and walks out the front door without even saying a word. Before I have a chance to call her name out the door slams behind her.
I turn around and see a letter on the kitchen table. I sit down with my freshly brewed coffee and an overwhelming feeling of sadness and regret filled me. The mug fell to the floor, my heart sank, and my knees weakened. My daughter had brought to my attention the girl from the night before. It was her – my own daughter. I was too drunk, too stoned, too fucked up on everything to even realize it. Apparently she was too. The lines of coke she was snorting as I introduced myself to her should have chased me away. She wore so much make up. What had I done? This must have been some kind of joke.
The back of the letter read: “It would appear that I am equally disgusting for letting myself be fucked by my own father. I suppose a part of me hoped you would realize who I was before you put your dick in me. I am disappointed father. I can only say that allowing last night’s actions represented some kind of detachment from you as my father. After the promises you made and the lies you kept secret, I felt no longer like a person anymore. I always did admire my mother more than you and she was brave enough to kill herself before it was too late. I find myself possessing that same bravery. “
Bravery was the last word I remember reading before the gunshot from outside. I ran out the front door and there in my car sat my daughter’s head hunched over the steering wheel.
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:|
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Well, if you were going for fucked up, I think you made it. I mean that in the most constructive way possible. I can't think of any other effect you could have been going for there except for shock.
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Well I wasn't going for "fucked up". Sometimes I just start writing and whatever makes its way onto the paper stays there and I work with it. I usually won't scrap anything because something can always be made from nothing. Most of the stuff I do write isn't that fucked up though. Usually what I write is more sexual or just random musings on people and life.
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Well, the sexual part was there, but in a messed up way. And then there was the aftermath. It reminded me of some of the short things I used to write. Sometimes I'd just have an idea, a short scene, and I'd play with it until I made something out of it.
Here's something I wrote a while back that's kinda like that. It started with a very simple idea, which I just took and ran with. To this day, it makes me chuckle every time, but I don't know if anyone else ever "gets" it. I think I may even have shared it here at some point, but apparently not in this thread.
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Long, Long Ago
The sun was setting on another glorious day of hunting, and the people of Clan Al-Batu were gathered around the fire for an evening of food, song and fellowship. Some of the younger warriors danced energetically in their brightly colored hides, trying to impress the females. Small children chased each other around. The adults engaged in animated conversation.
In the shadows off to one side, Raan, the clan's greatest warrior, lay nearly motionless with his head in the lap of his mate, Mikkal. Raan had returned late yesterday, badly injured and without his spear. Everybody knew what this meant, though of course no one spoke of it. Mikkal quietly tended to his injuries. Raan's face looked damp, or perhaps it was a trick of the light.
Suddenly a tall figure stepped out of the brush, holding a huge spear over his head. He wore plain hides with symbols burned into them, which identified him as Clan Muka-Ra, whose land bordered that of Clan Al-Batu. A border that was often disputed.
"I INVOKE THE ANCIENT LAW!" he bellowed. The clearing went silent as the stranger looked around, making eye contact with some, glancing past others.
"I invoke the Ancient Law!" he repeated. "The one law that all clans have honored since the beginning of days. I found THIS near the Field of the Great Oak!" He cast the spear to the ground before him. Everyone looked at the spear, and recognized it.
The Spear of Raan!
"And who are you?" said a voice, aged but with a quiet strength and no trace of fear. Laiman, the Clan Leader, rose from his seat among his advisors and faced the stranger. He wore hides that were multi-colored, but subdued, as befitting his station.
The stranger turned to him. "I am Toko, of Clan Muka-Ra."
"I am Laiman, Leader of Clan Al-Batu." Laiman looked over at the injured Raan, who had heard the commotion and turned to face the group. "Raan," asked Laiman, "do you recognize this?" He gestured toward the spear lying on the ground.
"Yes," said Raan, trying to sound stronger than he truly felt. "I lost it the other day. I was--"
Laiman held up a hand to silence him. There were some murmurs among the adults. Mikkal gave Raan a sharp look. Raan did not return the gaze.
Then Toko of Clan Muka-Ra spoke the ancient words: "Finders... Keepers."
Laiman looked at him, and nodded. "The spear is yours." There were some muffled gasps, but none dared challenge the wisdom of Laiman.
Toko picked up the spear. Suddenly he tossed it up and grabbed it with both hands, as if to wield it, but he was only testing his grip against the weight of the enormous spear. He looked at it, seemingly for the first time. It was a beautiful, well-crafted spear. It fit his hands well.
"Cool!" he said, smiling and nodding appreciatively. "Thanks!" He turned and disappeared into the darkness. Laiman sat back down and resumed clan business with his advisors. Eventually, conversation and activity resumed, and the evening proceeded without further incident.
In the shadows, with no eyes upon them, Mikkal said to Raan, "Shame on you! Speaking out of turn like that. And to the Clan Leader!"
"I fell down a damned ravine!" Raan cried, as though that excused his behavior. "What was I supposed to--"
"Oh shut up, you big baby!" said Mikkal. "You know the law. It is his now."
"Yes," Raan conceded. "It is his now."
He sighed, turned away from the fire, and wept.
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I think what gave me a bit of a chuckle is that it starts off with this serious tone, but by the end of the passage the tone had completely changed to regular conversation. I wasn't expecting that. :smiley:
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I like anachronism like that. It amuses me for some reason.
I started a story once about knights and wizards and magic and stuff, but the characters spoke in a modern vernacular. Taking a cue from J.R.R. Tolkien, the main character (me) smoked "southern pipeweed" which was known for its psychotropic effects. It was pretty silly, but it kept me busy for a while.
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I like anachronism like that. It amuses me for some reason.
I started a story once about knights and wizards and magic and stuff, but the characters spoke in a modern vernacular. Taking a cue from J.R.R. Tolkien, the main character (me) smoked "southern pipeweed" which was known for its psychotropic effects. It was pretty silly, but it kept me busy for a while.
I tried doing that too. I had about three chapters of some fantasy novel in the works but then hit a wall. I'm much better at writing random musings off the cuff as opposed to developing something like Tolkien did.
This is something that is going into a book I am putting together, part autobiographical, part embellishment.
Dissolute
Prologue:
I never thought while growing up that I would settle down, get married, have kids and all the other things that make me the typical member of society. The fabled
colored path leading to the pot of gold sometimes leaves out the most recurring colors one might encounter, the grays and blacks most notably. Those moments where one sinks chin deep into the dark chasms of the mind are the ones we carry with us until our last breath has escaped our lips. Contrarily, there are those subtle moments of elation that we are supposed to add up like pennies found on the sidewalk and hope the years of toil and desperation of accumulating them become something grand. These are the moments that arduously attempt to outshine the jaded experiences that befall us.
Was there even a drug invented by the gods above that I hadn't tried? Those highs that seemed to last forever. The bouts of withdrawal. The nights sleeping in an uncomfortable wooden jail bed and waking up with splinters in my ass. Some of the times I do miss the thrill of it, waking up on the hood of my car at some
unknown beach or drinking in the back row of church during my grandfather's funeral. The mundane of society always derisively shook its head in my direction yet they could not keep me down. I was inspiring a new generation of libertines without even realizing.
One has to sometimes wonder if the pitfalls on the path to glory make us who we become or is avoiding the pitfalls the trick. I prefer the former. The adventure,
full of its downs and rare ups, is enjoyable and even cathartic. It's those moments of gray where the mind forgets all moralistic behavior and delves into a world
of the dissolute.
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One Book Down
The larger creature stood about a meter from the smaller, wide-eyed creature, horrified, staring at the book. His eyes were bloodshot and his face looked as if someone was pointing a gun at him. Gasping, the creature ran outside the house with his book, and the larger creature followed him, among a few other creatures. The creature with the book ran into the street, and sat in the middle of the road. A truck ran over the creature, but the creature was small enough that only the wind slashed its belly time after time, drawing blood. The creature ran to the sidewalk nearer to the house, and, staring at the book, was slashed by the air time and time again, drawing blood and causing instant scars that did not bleed. The creature looked as though it was being tortured, still staring into the book.
Based off a dream I had. I have NO EFFING CLUE what any of that means, just note that the creatures are rabbits, and that the book had something to do with economics. If I have a dream that I can still remember intimately days later, I generally write it down.
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Closure
She snorted the last line of cocaine, grabbed her cup of Starbucks and headed out the bedroom door. My voluminous wasteland of irreconcilable desire was growing by the day. What reasons did I have for the old bait and screw? This one left in a fit of anger. My eye was still swollen and my dick felt like it had been squeezed and tugged on by rusty pliers. There were plenty of hard feelings but they seemed unidirectional. I just didn’t give a fuck anymore. That was my reason. I enjoyed the thrill of the chase but the finish line was littered with empty promises and broken hearts. Each woman, or girl in this case, piled on this suffocating burden when they mentioned the word love or relationship or even worse – us. I didn’t want there to be an, us. I didn’t want to wake up the next morning and plan our next date. There needed to be an immediate closure for me once that orgasm came and went.
My friends pleaded with me to find one girl, but how could I lie to myself and pretend that one girl would be enough for me. It would be dry monotony of that same face, that same vagina, night after night. I enjoyed the variation and adventure. It would be similar to eating the same food every day. Would you look forward to eating if you knew it was always going to be the same meal? Now, I can already hear the voices berating me for comparing a person to a piece of food. That is not where I am making the comparison. This is about desire, passion, the fish in the sea, both literally and figuratively, and fucking any one I want.
The sun is peeking above the horizon now. What will this new day bring? I walk into the bathroom to take a piss. I take a long hard look at myself in the mirror and I am content. My morning pot of coffee is awaiting me but I didn’t make it. From the living room my daughter walks in much to my surprise. She looks at me with such contempt and disdain and I realize why. She picks up her bag and walks out the front door without even saying a word. Before I have a chance to call her name out the door slams behind her.
I turn around and see a letter on the kitchen table. I sit down with my freshly brewed coffee and an overwhelming feeling of sadness and regret filled me. The mug fell to the floor, my heart sank, and my knees weakened. My daughter had brought to my attention the girl from the night before. It was her – my own daughter. I was too drunk, too stoned, too fucked up on everything to even realize it. Apparently she was too. The lines of coke she was snorting as I introduced myself to her should have chased me away. She wore so much make up. What had I done? This must have been some kind of joke.
The back of the letter read: “It would appear that I am equally disgusting for letting myself be fucked by my own father. I suppose a part of me hoped you would realize who I was before you put your dick in me. I am disappointed father. I can only say that allowing last night’s actions represented some kind of detachment from you as my father. After the promises you made and the lies you kept secret, I felt no longer like a person anymore. I always did admire my mother more than you and she was brave enough to kill herself before it was too late. I find myself possessing that same bravery. “
Bravery was the last word I remember reading before the gunshot from outside. I ran out the front door and there in my car sat my daughter’s head hunched over the steering wheel.
Holy...fucking....shit! :omg:
Congratulations, you are officially as fucked up as I am. and that my friend is saying something!
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Dare I ask how? :xbones
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Dare I ask how? :xbones
You dare not!
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Dare I ask how? :xbones
You dare not!
Perhaps one day you will divulge something.
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Dare I ask how? :xbones
You dare not!
Perhaps one day you will divulge something.
Tick works in mysterious ways...
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This one is a little graphic. You have been warned. :xbones
She was five feet – ten inches of legs, tits, and ass. Let’s not forget that sweet pussy too. She undressed herself before me as I lie handcuffed to the bed posts. My arms spread like Christ on the cross. Thankfully she didn’t use fucking nails. Though I get the idea she wanted to. Her outfit was a long , black dress hiding all of her goods. She wore thin-framed glasses which I don’t think were prescription. Her hair was pulled back and hung halfway to her ass only covered by the white and black headpiece. Her lips were red with a pure evil intent behind them.
She kicked off her heels nearly taking out my eye without one of them. She let out a soft yet seemingly evil laugh while my laugh was filled with nervousness. Her hands made their way up her perfectly shaped thighs and reached for her panties. She shook her ass at me as I watched her panties fall the rest of the way to the ground. She kicked them in my direction but somehow they wound up hanging from the chandelier. She was new at this I started to think. Her hands found the bottom of her dress and lifted it over her head and tossed it to the side this time. She was catching on that her aim could kill a small child one day. Her glasses were tossed on the nightstand as she slowly made her way over to me. She let her hair loose before she climbed on top of me.
My cock had been stiff for the last fifteen minutes. Every urge in me wanted to grab it and get myself off. I could barely hold it in anymore. She positioned her beautiful hairless pussy over my cock, lowering it just enough for the tip to feel the burning moisture between her legs. She pulled off quickly and my heartbeat was beginning to pick up speed. She did it again, watching my reaction each time. She was as wet as I was hard. Her juices were dripping down my shaft and letting my balls have some of the fun too.
She turned around and started to repeat the same actions. How hard can one man get she was probably thinking? Her ass was perfectly shaped, jiggling just enough for me to want to bite it. I tried to lean up but she turned around and shook her finger at me.
“which way,” she asked me.
“just like this,” I quickly responded.
She lowered her pussy onto me, her ass still facing me. She didn’t let me escape until I came. She rode me like a fucking stallion and squeezed the biggest orgasm out of me within minutes. I could feel her juices soaking me as she released hers. I was breathing heavy still, panting like a dog on a hot summer day.
She left the bed and got dressed. Her loving, yet evil eyes looked at me sinfully while she put her clothes back on. She said that she had to get to work and before I knew it, the door was closed behind her. I was still lying there naked, handcuffed, and lost in the labyrinthine mind of a deflowered sister.
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So... rape/not-so-rape
sexytime
SUDDENLY INCEST PLOT TWIST
okay
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Prog Snob, I don't know. You say you're not going for shock, but first we have a guy banging his daughter in a cocaine-fueled sexual frenzy, after which she blows her brains out, now we have a guy graphically describing how he deflowers his sister. There's definitely some skill in the way you tell the story, but you do understand that these are not normal scenarios, right?
And since I still can't tell, and no one has said one way or the other, I'm just gonna ask:
Does anybody "get" my story? (Long, Long Ago)
Is it so obvious that I'm stupid to even ask? Is it so obscure that no one gets it? There's what I consider to be a definite punchline to it, and I don't even know if it makes sense to anyone but me. Tempus says you should only write for your own enjoyment. I write because I like to, but I get no pleasure from it if I don't think anyone else understands or appreciates it.
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Incest? No. Sister = Nun. Look at the first paragraph: Long-black dress, black and white headpiece.
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Whoa, all the religious imagery went right over my head. I think people will tend to focus on the sexystuff and overlook the "sister" angle completely.
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Masterpiece
I never had the chance to say goodbye. Her cold dead eyes stares back at me like blue jewels that lost their luster. Her hands were cold to my touch and my tears frozen in time. There were no more words to be spoken, no more long kisses goodnight. I bowed my head but did not pray. I don’t believe in praying. I don’t feel her soul is now in a better place. Here with her was the better place, the best place. I heard everyone around me whispering in what seemed an incomprehensible language – or was I trying too hard to understand them. I know some of them blamed me for what happened, even though I was not there. I know some of them would rather see me lying there, cold and lifeless awaiting the flames of death. Part of me could not blame them. It was my job to protect her. It was my promise to her and those who cherished her breath long before I appeared. How does one cope with such unsettling thoughts? Alcohol helps but only momentarily takes away the sting. I won’t touch a drug. My personality is far too addictive. I’d overdose in a week and I don’t want to die. As unbearable as life seems right now, there is still more for me to do here but I’m not sure what. I am truly alone now. My family is in that “better place.” I was the lone survivor. Somehow I knew not to be there at that moment. Moments like those make me realize I have more to offer before I move on. Am I supposed to give in and enjoy that mundane nine-to-five lifestyle and have children? I don’t want children and it is not for the reasons you think. I don’t hate children like most people claim to. I just don’t think someone in my state would make a good father. I’m far too busy growing up in my own mind, still learning right from wrong. Yes, some of us are perpetually learning until the day we die, but my mistakes always seem to be far beyond what I could ever expect anyone to bear witness to.
She did though. She always did. My mistakes were her lessons. My hurtful words were her stories. I can accurately say that I would probably be lying there cold and dead if she hadn’t saved me – numerous times. Yet my one chance to save her left me useless, a pragmatic being in a world that needs heroes.
People are still waiting to see her now. I can hear their whispers, feel their disgust and impatience. My heart hangs heavier by the second like a gravestone weighing me down. I can still find no tears. I cried in life with her but in death the well runs dry. I made her cry far too often. Her family knew this. They saw what I did and pleaded with her to leave. Yet, she wanted to stay with me and all of my immature adventures.
It’s getting late now. I should let other people see her. I should let others feel her cold dead hands, the scars on her wrists, the deep red hue that the morticians could not remove. But my life is a bore now and once I walk away the enjoyment will end. Should I seek another? The façade was beginning to fade. This was my life’s work, my Mona Lisa. No one could even begin to understand the time and thought one spends on such a brilliant project – ten years to the day. I see nothing but death before me, that beautiful end of life that terminates all purpose and endeavor. She was my responsibility and my story has barely begun.
She was just twenty one when I first laid eyes on her and it was the beginning of the twilight of her life. She would become my greatest work and she didn’t even know it…
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Whoa :o
Masterpiece
It’s getting late now. I should let other people see her. I should let others feel her cold dead hands, the scars on her wrists, the deep red hue that the morticians could not remove. But my life is a bore now and once I walk away the enjoyment will end. Should I seek another? The façade was beginning to fade. This was my life’s work, my Mona Lisa. No one could even begin to understand the time and thought one spends on such a brilliant project – ten years to the day. I see nothing but death before me, that beautiful end of life that terminates all purpose and endeavor. She was my responsibility and my story has barely begun.
She was just twenty one when I first laid eyes on her and it was the beginning of the twilight of her life. She would become my greatest work and she didn’t even know it…
The art of murder? :eek
This was really well done.
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Thanks. :smiley:
There's a lot more to that story which I started to work on recently, but it needs to be heavily edited. A lot of it was just random sentences thrown on paper just to get my ideas together in once place. One of these days I'll gather everything together and attempt to publish something.
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Random sentences in one place? Sounds like what I did for my first composition. I intend to extend every separate part of that thing into its own developed composition.
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Random sentences in one place? Sounds like what I did for my first composition. I intend to extend every separate part of that thing into its own developed composition.
I find it hard to just sit down and force myself to write something that isn't there. Sometimes whatever comes out doesn't make perfect sense until I fashion it better. What I hate is when I am going really strong with something and I literally have thousands of words pouring out but something breaks my concentration. No matter how hard I try, I can never get back into that perfect mood and setting again and the story just gets left as is. I think I become too immersed mentally in each story that any kind of detachment totally fucks it up.
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Have homework right now, but I will post a story tomorrow.
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Ode to NY/NJ Traffic
:censored
Thank you.
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Ode to NY/NJ Traffic
:censored
Thank you.
I read that as "Ode to Joy / NY traffic" and I thought "Uhh, you just described a Die Hard scene..."
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Ode to NY/NJ Traffic
:censored
Thank you.
I read that as "Ode to Joy / NY traffic" and I thought "Uhh, you just described a Die Hard scene..."
:lol
I could see how one would make that connection.
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Does anybody "get" my story? (Long, Long Ago)
Is it so obvious that I'm stupid to even ask? Is it so obscure that no one gets it? There's what I consider to be a definite punchline to it, and I don't even know if it makes sense to anyone but me.
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Does anybody "get" my story? (Long, Long Ago)
Is it so obvious that I'm stupid to even ask? Is it so obscure that no one gets it? There's what I consider to be a definite punchline to it, and I don't even know if it makes sense to anyone but me.
I got it, though I think I already pointed out the interesting anachronism unless there is something else there that I am not picking up.
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The speech anachronism is just the silly way I write. I find it amusing. I'm sure some find it distracting.
The "joke" -- such as it is, I suppose -- is that Raan, the great warrior, has lost his spear. A guy from a rival clan shows up with it and invokes the ancient law, and we assume that war will now be declared or something. But the ancient law is "Finders Keepers" and he gets to keep the spear, which is pretty awesome, and all Raan can do is weep.
That's it. Finders keepers, losers weepers.
"Yes," Raan conceded. "It is his now."
He sighed, turned away from the fire, and wept.
I guess I find it funny that these great warriors with all their traditions live by a rule that little kids use to justify possession being 9/10 of the law. Which, now that I think about it, is another anachronism. It's just that I've always wondered whether or not anyone even realizes that that's the point of the story.
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I guess it was pretty obvious: finders keepers, losers weepers. :lol
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Ode to NYC Sanitation
>:(
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Bumping this up. Anyone have anything they'd like to share?
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Bump
I want to see more creativity from the writers here.
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Prog, that's horrible, sorry.
I can't believe I opened this at work, either. You'd think a thread like this could be reasonable safe for work.
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What's horrible?
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I have a few short stories I could share but
A) I write fantasy which doesn't seem to be what the content in this thread is about.
B) My most recent story comes in at ~6000 words and it's one of the shorter ones, very different from the other content in this thread
C) I like to use italics and stuff, plus with all those words there are a lot of paragraphs, thus a lot of indents... none of that translates automatically if I copy text into a post.
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I have a few short stories I could share but
A) I write fantasy which doesn't seem to be what the content in this thread is about.
B) My most recent story comes in at ~6000 words and it's one of the shorter ones, very different from the other content in this thread
C) I like to use italics and stuff, plus with all those words there are a lot of paragraphs, thus a lot of indents... none of that translates automatically if I copy text into a post.
https://pastebin.com/
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I have a few short stories I could share but
A) I write fantasy which doesn't seem to be what the content in this thread is about.
B) My most recent story comes in at ~6000 words and it's one of the shorter ones, very different from the other content in this thread
C) I like to use italics and stuff, plus with all those words there are a lot of paragraphs, thus a lot of indents... none of that translates automatically if I copy text into a post.
Actually, fantasy is my preferred genre, so I'd love to read what you have.
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Wattpad is your friend :smiley:
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I haven't written an actual story in more than a year or so
ugh someone give me a prompt to write on
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Wattpad is your friend :smiley:
What?
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Oops, that message was intended for Genowyn :lol
ugh someone give me a prompt to write on
JP loses the ability to whahíbrido pickingant.
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Oops, that message was intended for Genowyn :lol
I know. I was just being a wiseass. :lol
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About forty pages into the polish of my third novel. Still working out the query letter. Gonna be looking for an agent soon and starting the first draft of my fourth novel hopefully by the first weekend of February.
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So I tried using Wattpad, for some reason it deleted a couple hundred spaces from the story so I had to go through and add them back in. Hopefully I didn't miss any.
Anyway: https://www.wattpad.com/210316821-the-harbingers
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What happened to the old thread?
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What happened to the old thread?
This one has been going since 2010. Was there an older one?
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I don't know if the other one is older, but a few months ago there was a quite active thread called "writers unite!" with basically the same concept.
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I remember posting in that one as well.
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Ive always fancied writing but no idea what to write about / where to start etc.
I'd love to write an original sci-fi.
:) as tacky as that sounds.
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I know we have several fantasy writers here, myself included, so no one's gonna see that as tacky. Go for it.
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I haven't written an actual story in more than a year or so
ugh someone give me a prompt to write on
I remember...
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I haven't written an actual story in more than a year or so
ugh someone give me a prompt to write on
Once upon a time...
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Whoa, I thought AndyDT was back for a second.
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Right after the Super Bowl, I'm resuming Dreamer. Took the entire NFL season off, and feel much more recharged. Raring to go.
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Hey Guize. Here's the first line of my new sci-fi story - tell me what you think :biggrin: :biggrin:
" It was a dark and stormy night... "
:neverusethis:
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In a hole in the ground...
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Ships Hide In Ports.
Ships Hide In Ports.
Some Hide In Deep Estuaries.
In Nighttime Pursuits.
Or Ready To Sail.
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Today was rainy and dark, and felt the need to write, so I took one short idea I came upon some weeks ago, and I'm working on it now, expanding it into a novella. Working title: Into The Mist. Should be fun :P
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I wrote about a thousand words and did some outlining for the novel I've been putting off, tentatively called Chronicles of Eldamore.
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RE : My thing above. I've always wanted to write something where the first letter of each word spells out the same thing.
Obviously you'd never finish it but it would be cool to see how far you could go. :)
EDIT : Or you could just go as far as "Sail" as that is where the "title" ends.
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RE : My thing above. I've always wanted to write something where the first letter of each word spells out the same thing.
Obviously you'd never finish it but it would be cool to see how far you could go. :)
EDIT : Or you could just go as far as "Sail" as that is where the "title" ends.
Or you could be like this kid.
(https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/01/17/article-2541162-1ABCFF4200000578-11_634x838.jpg)
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Except mine would be clever-er-er :neverusethis:
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:lol
When I started reading what you wrote, I was looking for a pattern for some reason. Now I know my intentions were correct.
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Has anyone had a chance to read the story I posted earlier? I'd love some (constructive) feedback.
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It's a bit long, but I'll give it a read later :tup
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Has anyone had a chance to read the story I posted earlier? I'd love some (constructive) feedback.
I'll check it out later on when I'm relaxing on the couch. :)
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I really want to continue my writing, but sometime after last summer I made some decisions that so vastly expanded the story that I just felt tired about it. I hope I'll get back to it once summer rolls around, that's usually when I feel motivated.
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I'd like to make a full story/book out of this, but that's not my intention as of right now. I just wanted to give the writing and dialogue style a shot. I didn't want any focus on story or anything, this was just for purposes of working on and working out dialogue and inner monologue. Anyhoo, here you go. Sorry for formatting, this type of stuff is always wonky on forums.
December 6, 1933
There's nothin' like a cold night in New York to let a guy appreciate his furnace. The raindrops tapping on the windows damn near put me to sleep right there at the desk in my office. It was nearing the end of a long and uneventful day – all the bad eggs must have been too cold to go outside, leaving me to all to my lonesome. Normally, I don't have this kind of spare time, but when I do, there are two things I wet my whistle with: women and whiskey. One of those things was sitting on my desk, and I wish I could tell you it was a woman. I was just about to pour a glass of the city's finest bootleg when I heard a knock at the door.
“Johnnie! Johnnie Wright, you in there?”
I answered just loud enough he could hear me through the door. “Who's askin'?
“MacLemore!”
Sergeant MacLemore, from the police department. I hadn't talked to him since I left the service to become a private detective about a year ago. We didn't have any beef, but we weren't friends, either.
“At your service!”
The door swung open and MacLemore walked in. He tossed a newspaper on my desk. “You haven't been outside all day, have you?” he asked. “This was sittin' outside your front door.”
I looked up at him and shook my head. “Business is slow. Care to join me for a drink?”
He eyed the bottle on my desk. “Jesus,” he muttered. “You still drinkin' that coffin varnish?”
“I got it from the dame that runs the juice joint next door. Spilled a glass yesterday, took some paint off the desk.”
He chuckled, then sat down across from me. “Sounds like my cup of tea.”
“Great.” I poured him a glass and slid it across the desk toward him. “Now, I know you well enough to know you didn't come in here to bump gums, so I'd be a fool if I didn't think you were about to ask me for help.”
He hesitated for a moment. “Look,” he started. “You're the best private dick around...”
“No, no, you're the dick. That's why I left the service.”
“Always the wiseguy. You gonna hear me out or not?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry, go ahead.”
“Some of the guys at the station are strung out pretty bad. Word is they're bringin' in dope, but I can't figure out where it's coming from. I think I might have a dirty cop or two workin' for me.”
“It's New York, I'd be surprised if you had a clean cop workin' for you.”
He scowled at me again. To be honest, I'd already made up my mind; I needed the dough just as much as the next guy, but it was instinct for me to pick on him.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “But why don't you do somethin' about it? It's your job.”
“I can't have 'em suspecting anything. You're good, Wright. You can get close without gettin' close, ya know? And you do it better than anyone in the business. They won't suspect it. But they will suspect me.”
I leaned back in my chair and pretended to think about it for a moment.“Yeah, I'll do it. Ten dollars a day, plus any fees or expenses I might incur.”
“Ten dollars? Since when did you start workin' for peanuts?”
“Same time everyone else did, when the market crashed.”
MacLemore nodded, then stood up. “That's a fair price. Consider yourself hired. Oh, and maybe when we get this taken care of I'll buy you a drink next door. We can get caught up.”
“Yeah, that'd be alright.”
He made his way to the door, but before he left, he stopped and turned back around. “Oh, and merry Christmas.”
The door shut behind him, and I picked up the newspaper he left me. I pulled the string off and unrolled the paper to lay eyes on the latest headline.
PROHIBITION REPEAL IS RATIFIED AT 5:32 P.M.; ROOSEVELT ASKS NATION TO BAR THE SALOON; NEW YORK CELEBRATES WITH QUIET RESTRAINT
Merry Christmas, indeed.
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Interesting. I know you said you're not looking to build off this just yet, but what did you have in mind?
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Question for any Writers'... Have you chosen names for characters, that you are then put off when you see them used elsewhere?
I have had a story idea in my head for more than a few years now, rolling around upstairs with a few others.
In the last 12 months or so have started putting pen to paper, I have named a few characters, but my main character is named Arabella ... the name came to me as the story did.
Now I know the names are not identical, but it is a very unique name and I understand obviously DT is more music than the back story for the characters behind the songs, but JP came up with Arabelle, now every time I write the name or think of the character and her story I have DT in my head.
What have people done in this case?
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Maybe I should post some of my wife's stufd
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I enjoyed reading that, MJ. I'd be curious to see what you come up with on that story (if anything) in the future.
Question for any Writers'... Have you chosen names for characters, that you are then put off when you see them used elsewhere?
I have had a story idea in my head for more than a few years now, rolling around upstairs with a few others.
In the last 12 months or so have started putting pen to paper, I have named a few characters, but my main character is named Arabella ... the name came to me as the story did.
Now I know the names are not identical, but it is a very unique name and I understand obviously DT is more music than the back story for the characters behind the songs, but JP came up with Arabelle, now every time I write the name or think of the character and her story I have DT in my head.
What have people done in this case?
If you make her your own, like really your own, then I'd think that eventually you'd stop making the comparison. Not that it wouldn't be easier to come up with a new name, but if she's an Arabella then maybe that's what she is. Maybe there's nothing to do about it, but bring her to life all the more vividly and ensure that she stands on her own? I think there're always going to be conflicts with names, like this one, and in the end I think the best way to overcome those conflicts is to make your character more real than John Petrucci's? Is it harder that way, maybe. Will it ultimately help you in establishing that character as a unique entity? I'd hope so(?)
Just my two cents.
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Yeah I can't really help since I write fantasy, so most of the names are just made up. I would think that some crossover is inevitable when you're using real names, though.
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Thanks Guys! I will get over it.. eventually :o
I remember after looking up the name for its meaning when I first decided on it, it meant yielding to prayer, a Latin name and in 2014 it was rated #174 for girls names. I was bound to come across it, it was just a shock when I read the the interview with JP and the character names.
Very different than the character JP has created, so that is at least one relief. :smiley:
The more I write the less I will care, the problem at the moment is wrestling with a few ideas at once and trying to spend equal time writing each one.
Hats off to those who have shared their writing already, it is a very brave thing to do. I will hold out until a complete draft is done... I am having a heart attack about a similar character name, imagine a similar story!
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I have been tossing around five or six different ideas for novels and struggling to decide on one of them. Tonight I think I've finally found which idea to bring to life. Now, I'm just hoping I can stick with it instead of running off to chase another idea. I think this one is it though. I'm starting to outline the characters, do some research, find the right music to listen to for inspiration, and also find the right books and movies to turn to for inspiration. This is going to be a dark and surreal story where appearances are incidental and perception is deceiving. Imagine Wonderland twisted around the finger of Lovecraft.
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Cool stuff Prog Snob. :tup :tup
As you continue to get into it, if you ever want to bounce ideas off someone, please share more or shoot me a pm. The thing I've noticed these last few months, as I've become more serious about my writing, is that talking things through is invaluable when trying to "crack" a story or find out what it's missing. I've never worked on a novel (longest thing I can claim is more along the lines of a novella), but I know many of the same principles apply. So yeah--I'm always open and curious.
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Not trying to nag or anythong but has anyone checked out the story I posted earlier? I'd love feedback.
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I read it just now. Interesting story.
As for critisism, the only concrete one I have is about Akhter explaining what the Great Deception was. It feels a bit too much like forced exposition, since everyone in the room seems to know precisely what it is. You created a better chance to describe what it is later when he's reading a book about it.
I have one other comment, but I don't really count it as critisism since this is a short story. Almost all events are a bit rushed. It feels like the story of an entire first book of a series summarised in paragraphs. It would make an even more engaging and interesting story if the different scenes were given some room to breathe so that they can flow more naturally. But it's a short story, so I get it.
But I am continuously impressed with the world you're creating and it's clear that you've really spent time building it. I actually feel a bit inspired again after reading it, it's been a long time now.
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Also, I know some of you read this in the old thread, but since we have a new one here I might as well post this here too:
https://www.writerscafe.org/writing/DanielLarnhem/1578840/ (https://www.writerscafe.org/writing/DanielLarnhem/1578840/)
This is the prologue to the first book in my series called "The Rain".
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I read it just now. Interesting story.
As for critisism, the only concrete one I have is about Akhter explaining what the Great Deception was. It feels a bit too much like forced exposition, since everyone in the room seems to know precisely what it is. You created a better chance to describe what it is later when he's reading a book about it.
I have one other comment, but I don't really count it as critisism since this is a short story. Almost all events are a bit rushed. It feels like the story of an entire first book of a series summarised in paragraphs. It would make an even more engaging and interesting story if the different scenes were given some room to breathe so that they can flow more naturally. But it's a short story, so I get it.
But I am continuously impressed with the world you're creating and it's clear that you've really spent time building it. I actually feel a bit inspired again after reading it, it's been a long time now.
I've gotten the comment regarding the novel thing before. I'm just not sure I have anything else interesting to write about Akhter.
I do like exposition in the form of books or having a character listen to a sermon or watch a play or whatnot, since I feel there's less constraint on how you talk about it if they're, say, reading a history book. I've had people in the past say they didn't like it when I did it that way in the past which may be why I shied away from it this time. I'll play with it and see what comes out.
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I've gotten the comment regarding the novel thing before. I'm just not sure I have anything else interesting to write about Akhter.
Well, maybe the investigation could take longer, and it could play as a mystery thriller, like a fantasy detective story. The moment when they come face to face with the cult leader could be a really cool one if there had been most of a mystery novel building up to it.
Unless you mean just the character and not his story, like you don't feel Akhter is an interesting enough person to warrant an entire book? Maybe, but you could always make him more interesting.
Does this tie in to the main story you're doing in any way?
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Was referring to your comment about possibly being the first work in a series... There's nothing else I would want to write about Akhter. I can certainly see where this story has room to grow. And while one-off Fantasy novels are a thing, I guess it's a bit of a harder sell.
As of now I don't see Akhter having a place in the larger story... Though now that you mention it I see the shape of something really interesting... Would require a rearrangement of my current timeline though.
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Is there a website/blog/journal site that people can post their writings without fear of being stolen? And possibly get paid for it? My wife usually posts a lot of her non-fiction stuff on her tumblr and she's also written stuff on fanfiction website (there's two she's posted in but she's been so busy and with our computers being crap she doesn't write as much as she would like).
WHEEEEE
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Good question, splent. If anyone has any ideas for this, I would love to know also.
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I mean, from a legal perspective just sticking an "All Rights Reserved" on there is about all you can do. No website is going to stop someone from just copy-pasting it (many websites do stick a link to the source in when you copy, but someone who really wants to steal your shit can just get rid of it).
Wattpad which was recommended to me earlier has an option to include copyright in the post, so there's that.
As far as making money I think you'd have a bit more trouble. Best bet might just be to get a cheap domain from someplace like GoDaddy and stick some AdSense on it, but I think it'd need to be a really cheap domain to turn a profit unless it's getting serious traffic.
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Nah. She has followers that read her fanfics but she doesn't intend on making money on those.
She's thinking about writing a nonfiction book about Hollywood history and the politics involved during the red scare though, and comparing them with the politics today leading up to oscars so white
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I finished the prologue for my book. It's finally going to get done.
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Cool!
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I rewrote the first part of the bit I posted earlier, and reformatted the rest. A sort of writing exercise, I guess. I'm really happy with the first paragraph, so I'm gonna keep revising the rest.
December 6, 1933
The smoke that poured out of the end of my cigar carried itself through the office and dispersed when it met the window, making a nice contrast to the raindrops dancing on the other side of the pane. I was sitting at my desk, like I had been all day, my mind drifting from thought to thought without any rhyme or reason. It's days like these I rely on two things to wet my whistle: women and whiskey. One of those things was sitting on my desk, and I wish I could tell you it was a woman. I don't have the money to chase tail, so I chase whiskey instead. I was just about to pour a glass of the city's finest bootleg when I heard a knock at the door.
“Johnnie! Johnnie, you in there?”
I answered just loud enough he could hear me through the door. “Who's askin'?
“MacLemore!”
Sergeant MacLemore, from the police department. I hadn't talked to him since I left the service to become a private detective about a year ago. We didn't have any beef, but we weren't friends, either.
“At your service!”
The door swung open and MacLemore walked in. He tossed a newspaper on my desk. “You haven't been outside all day, have you?” he asked. “This was sittin' outside your front door.”
I looked up at him and shook my head. “Business is slow. Care to join me for a drink?”
He eyed the bottle on my desk. “Jesus,” he muttered. “You still drinkin' that coffin varnish?”
“I got it from the dame that runs the juice joint next door. Spilled a glass yesterday, took some paint off the desk.”
He chuckled, then sat down across from me. “Sounds like my cup of tea.”
“Great.” I poured him a glass and slid it across the desk toward him. “Now, I know you well enough to know you didn't come in here to bump gums, so I'd be a fool if I didn't think you were about to ask me for help.”
He hesitated for a moment. “Look,” he started. “You're the best private dick around...”
“No, no, you're the dick. That's why I left the service.”
“Always the wiseguy. You gonna hear me out or not?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry, go ahead.”
“Some of the guys at the station are strung out pretty bad. Word is they're bringin' in dope, but I can't figure out where it's coming from. I think I might have a dirty cop or two workin' for me.”
“It's New York, I'd be surprised if you had a clean cop workin' for you.”
He scowled at me again. To be honest, I'd already made up my mind; I needed the dough just as much as the next guy, but it was instinct for me to pick on him.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “But why don't you do somethin' about it? It's your job.”
“I can't have 'em suspecting anything. You're good, Wright. You can get close without gettin' close, ya know? And you do it better than anyone in the business. They won't suspect it. But they will suspect me.”
I leaned back in my chair and pretended to think about it for a moment.“Yeah, I'll do it. Ten dollars a day, plus any fees or expenses I might incur.”
“Ten dollars? Since when did you start workin' for peanuts?”
“Same time everyone else did, when the market crashed.”
MacLemore nodded, then stood up. “That's a fair price. Consider yourself hired. Oh, and maybe when we get this taken care of I'll buy you a drink next door. We can get caught up.”
“Yeah, that'd be alright.”
He made his way to the door, but before he left, he stopped and turned back around. “Oh, and merry Christmas.”
The door shut behind him, and I picked up the newspaper he left me. I pulled the string off and unrolled the paper to lay eyes on the best news I'd heard all year.
PROHIBITION REPEAL IS RATIFIED AT 5:32 P.M.; ROOSEVELT ASKS NATION TO BAR THE SALOON; NEW YORK CELEBRATES WITH QUIET RESTRAINT
Merry Christmas, indeed.
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I was speaking to this woman and she's working with a publishing company to put out a Lovecraft-based anthology she put together. She's also putting together a couple of other things, one of which is a collection of short horror stories. When she found out that I write, she asked me to send her something to read just to get an idea of my writing. Apparently what I sent her impressed her and she asked if I would like to submit something, so naturally I said yes. I mean, it's not a big company. It's a small independent company but it's something and could be a great start. I have a few months before it has to be submitted so I'm working on it and have a couple of thousand words already. There is no limit. Just as long as the story is compelling. It could be one page or fifty pages.
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So, I'm most of the way finished with this story when another story idea came to mind. Now I'm not sure which to choose. I suppose I can write both and then let others read it and let me know what they think.
One story is about a young girl who is at a family wake and has flashbacks of the family member and her imaginary friend.
The other story is about a medium who helps people to crossover and move on after death. He winds up falling in love with a young girl and wants to die to be with her. A mess ensues because she doesn't know if her unfinished business will put her elsewhere.
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The work on my first book has been pretty much dead for a few months because I made some pretty large changes to the story and just lost motivation for a while. Specifically, I made a choice that pretty much reshaped my plans for books 4, 5, and 6. As well as the finale to book 2, which needed major work because it was rubbish. But now I have finally got those things figured out, at least the basic stuff, since those things are still several books away. But I'm hoping this means that once summer rolls around I'll be able to continue, finally.
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That's probably what GRRM goes through. One change in the plot can set off an avalanche of ensuing rewrites. How many books will it ultimately be?
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Yeah probably, it can really knock you down, knowing you have rework so much stuff in your head, and sometimes even rework something you've written and thought was done.
There will be six books, someday hopefully.
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Do you use Word or some other editing software?
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Just Word, which is fine I suppose. It feels a bit cluttered to me, but it's fine.
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I've been searching for something better. I use Libre Office since that's what comes with Linux Mint, but I'm sure there are better choices out there.
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Yeah, Word is most likely not the best, but I lack the motivation to look something up. At least until the day Word annoys me too much. I much preferred the old Microsoft Works. At least I think it was called that.
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Microsoft Works was cool. I liked the scaled-down versions of Word, Excel, etc., and the much friendlier integration and interface.
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I used to use Scrivener back when I had my first draft for NaNoWriMo and later when I started something new. I can definitely recommend it, quite a complete software.
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I've heard of Scrivener but never looked into it. I think I was getting emails from them.
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I came up with a twisted yet intriguing short story idea. It's a story about a young girl's experience as a nun and living in a convent. She still has a bit of her old life in her and has designs for a priest, so they get together and things go too far and wind up fucking. This happens numerous times over the years with priests, churchgoers, and even the older altar boys. Ultimately the years pass and the building gets torn down and they find 6 dead babies walled up inside the convent. Inside the convent they also find the diary of the nun. It reveals that she became pregnant numerous times during her stay there. To keep the pregnancies a secret she went to a birthing clinic to have the babies delivered. When she left the clinic she had them bound in duct tape and plastic bags and hid them inside one of the walls.
Those are the basics of the story. The details will be ironed out and some darker angles added but I might use that story for the horror anthology I'm writing for.
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You're right; that sounds twisted yet intriguing. I'm curious as to how it would play out, though. It seems that the main body of the story would focus on the girl, with events essentially from her point of view. The reveal with the hidden dead babies would be some years later, so how that ties into the main story, and the way in which we get the backstory on them would be tricky and crucial to making the work a success.
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What's going to happen is that I have to keep it short enough to appear in this anthology. However, this could easily be turned into a novel. My writing doesn't suffer from not being enough. It suffers from becoming too involved, so I scale it back to not let it overwhelm me. Sure, I love reading short stories. However, what I love the most are worlds created with intricate detail and diligence, worlds like Middle Earth and Westeros. Television shows like Lost that still have unanswered questions. I can probably make this a short story that is a dozen or two pages.
I showed the idea to the woman who is putting the anthology together and she loves it. She said it's one of the more unique ideas she has seen for this book. She just released a Lovecraft anthology. They're not stories by him, but stories from writers with Lovecraftian influence. She asked me to write something for that, too, but I would never have finished it in time.
This story with the nun can become really involved, but I will keep it simple for now. Maybe she was a prostitute or a runaway or a former drug abuser. In exchange for jail time, she was given probation and had to spend time in a rehabilitation clinic, after which she was released into the hands of a family priest from her old neighborhood. It's there that she finds some kind of catharsis, but her past comes back to haunt her. OR I could do something different. I'll see what path leads to something darker and twisted. We shall see.
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So I've started working on a new novel for a variety of reasons, but mostly because this one has crowded out the other one in terms of my creative space.
This story will be following multiple POVs each with their own chapters (Like Martin? Sure. Also like Abraham and Abercrombie and others I'm sure. Just an effective method of telling epic Fantasy I think). This has meant needing to create a timeline and rough chapter outlines before starting to write, which has the advantage of still giving me a lot of freedom in the chapters while having structure and direction to work toward.
Additionally this allows me to approach each chapter individially instead of as part of the whole story. I plan to approach each chapter as its own short story which i hope will have the effect of making them more engaging. I can then also edit them individually and rearrange the order as necessary, and it breaks the writing down into a bunch of less daunting pieces.
Excited about this project and may share some chapters as I go for criticism etc.
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Nice! Is it still the same world as the previous stuff?
Man.. I need to pick up my writing again, but I don't think it's possible at the moment. My story is just growing so fast it gets away from me and I now fear I won't actually be ready to resume proper writing for a few years because I suddenly have a lot of re-planning to do... Again.
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I also started something using GRRM's method of POV characters, except mine is no longer fantasy based, it's fairytale inspired. One could argue that fairytales are considered fantasy.
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Nice! Is it still the same world as the previous stuff?
Yes it is.
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In the early stages of planning my series I was struggling how to do the chapters and still get all the vital information in there. Then I opened A Game of Thrones, saw "Bran" at the top of the page and thought "ah, that's how I'll do it, it solves all my problems". So yeah, it's a good way to frame a very multi-main-character story.
One could argue that fairytales are considered fantasy.
I'd probably say it is.
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Well the good news is that my story is going to be included in the anthology. The only downside is when. It could be anywhere from later this year to early next year. Hey, look at the bright side. It'll be out before The Winds of Winter. :neverusethis:
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I have heard about people going to a starbucks or barnes and nobel to write. More power to them but I could never write in that type of environment. I really like an isolated spot with minimal noise. A place where I can get lost in my own head.
Something like this would be perfect for me:
(https://www.literaturebitch.com/wp-content/uploads/11-300x300.jpg)
What are your guys favorite/preferred spots to write?
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I think I'm with you. Isolated spot with minimal noise.
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Starbucks has been my go-to lately, because I need to be around activity. For the problem of noise, noise-cancelling headphones + The Piano Bar on Spotify.
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NaNoWriMo starts in 2 days! Anyone participating?
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NaNoWriMo starts in 2 days! Anyone participating?
I don't participate for the 50 000 words, because as a slow writer (though I'm sure I run laps around GRRM) I simply do not have the time in a month to write 50 000 words. Maybe I could sit and type "I" followed by a space 50 000 times?
However, this year I have set a word count goal of 20 000, and if I surpass 25 000 I am going to treat myself somehow. Although, the release of Battlefield 1 could be a crippling blow.
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That's a good goal to set. I feel like we should "force" ourselves to write at least a page a day. It's not that hard. A book page is usually anywhere from 200-300 words. If we did 250 a day each day of the year it would come to lover 90,000 words. Granted some days would be a lost cause but others would bring more than a page. Even if we make edits, take stuff out, add stuff in, it would still be a significant amount of words. I think looking at it from that angle it's hopeful.
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https://writtenkitten.co/
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I have nothing to add to the topic itself, but I want to point out that this thread was started by AndyDT. Oh the memories. I wonder whether he ever met his Indian woman.
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Hey guys, I would really appreciate some honest feedback on the following. I've never had an unbiased opinion of my writing before, so if it is bad please be honest, just give me some ideas on how you think it could be better. Some backstory:
Eothred is the King of Aranor, the major kingdom in my story. Mayela is Eothred's daughter-in-law, and to say they have a disagreeable history would be an understatement. Mayela once tried to seduce Eothred's younger brother, Eonar, and when he rejected her advances she had his wife and children killed, and had Eonar framed for it. The king knew that Mayela did it but cannot prove it, and eventually had to banish his own brother from the kingdom, either that or kill him. Mayela then married Eothred's eldest son, Eomen (the "Eo" beginning of names is a tradition among the male descendants of the royal line). Mayela and Eomen have a bastard child, Aelenden (notice he does not have an "Eo" name, he is not able to ascend to the throne). That is all you should need to know prior to reading this selection. It is just a part taken from a chapter, so you are jumping right into the conversation between Mayela and Eothred. Keep in mind this is unpolished, but any criticism you guys can offer would be much appreciated.
*****
"Sit." He gestured toward the cushioned chair opposite the desk from him. Mayela took a deep breath and sat down.
A tallow candle flickered on the desk, burning low to the silver candlestick. King Eothred poured a blot of blue wax onto the parchment and pressed the ring on his right hand into it, sealing the document. Mayela's nose tingled with the scent of the melted wax, and her memories careened back to her childhood when she had spent hours watching her own father repeat this same ritual, and it was as if she was a young girl once more, curious of the secrets contained within the folded pages of parchment.
Eothred blew on the seal and waved the document around in an attempt to dry the wax, and thousands of pounce granules spilled out of the creases and onto the mahogany desk, the fine powder died black with ink.
"Are you not curious as to why I have summoned you?" Eothred set aside the sealed parchment and pulled an empty one off of the pile to his left. He sprinkled more pounce on the rough parchment and dipped his quill into the ink, continuing without pause.
"I assume it is not to let me simply watch you write these letters." She could feel the grains lodging themselves into the side of her palm as if she was writing the letters herself, and the scratch of the quill on the coarse paper sent tingles up her arm.
"No, it is not that."
"Then speak, for I have much to do."
"You have more to do than I, the king?" Mayela could see Eothred's arched eyebrow, although he never once lifted his head from his writing. Mayela breathed deeply again, this time to calm her mounting anger.
"Is there anything more important to a parent than their first born son?" The question set Mayela aback, but the king continued to write, hardly worried of what Mayela might read.
"Would you not agree?" Mayela remained silent, at a loss for words and uncertain of the king's purpose.
"No, there is nothing," she said, but she was hesitant. Is he trying to goad me? What does he know?
"Then you will understand why you are here today." He shook some more pounce on the letter to dry the ink and then folded it. "Aelenden is your first born, as Eomen is mine, so as a father I concern myself with my son and in relation, Aelenden, but as a king I must always consider the interests of my kingdom."
Mayela sighed with relief, and Eothred pressed his signet ring into the wax once again.
"Aelenden is my son, I should choose his fate," said Mayela, guessing as to the direction of this conversation.
"He is my subject," the king argued, though his voice did not rise. "And there are thousands of years of standards that I must uphold."
"What is this about?"
"Aelenden can never inherit the throne," Eothred began, "This you already know. He has no rights, he has nothing."
"He is my son, he should have the rights he deserves."
Eothred set down his quill and shuffled through a stack of paper. "This is not up for discussion, it is a fact, and nothing will change that."
"You condemn my child based on the words of men who have been dead for thousands of years."
Finally, Eothred lifted his head up from his desk and looked Mayela in the eye.
"One's destiny is not condemnation. I will not rewrite the history of my ancestors because you and my son were unable to act as adults. I love Eomen, he is a good man and will be a great king, but Aelenden was a mistake and is a smudge on my son's reputation, something I have worked hard my whole life to maintain."
"Are you calling Aelenden a mistake?" Mayela was shaking with rage, and it was all she could do to not throw herself over the desk between them and throttle the king.
"Yes. What good is a child, a son moreover, if he is unable to inherit the throne and carry on my bloodline?"
Mayela let the subtle insult of her femininity pass. "Then Eothraen is also a mistake."
"Do not speak ill of my son." Eothred's voice was full of poison. "Eothraen may inherit the throne yet, your son will not."
Mayela laughed, though she would have much rather screamed. "You would never bestow the throne upon Eothraen, not if he were the lone remaining heir. You would summon your b-"
Eothred stood up suddenly, and his chair crashed to the floor behind him. "Do not mention his name to me." His face was red and the veins in his neck throbbed with blood. "Not after all you have done." He pointed at her with a shaking finger. "You have done everything in your power to destroy the legacy of my family and your people, and for what? So your son can be king? There would be nothing left for him to rule in your wake, and even then, you would want the power for yourself. Is that what you have wanted all this time, to be queen with no king? Is that the motivation behind your wicked eyes?"
"I have done nothing you would not do for your own son."
"I have not-" his voice dissolved into a feral growl, low and threatening. "I know what you did."
"Then you cannot prove it, else I would be still be hanging from your gallows instead of sitting here in your study." She amused herself by watching the king contain his rage. She had seen him like his once before, and so too did she know she walked a fine line here. She smiled and crossed her hands on her lap, the image of innocence, and the king had to turn his gaze aside.
"Does it anger you so to talk to your own daughter?" she masked her voice with the sweetness all women in the court used.
"It angers me that you live," he admitted. "It angers me that you are allowed to poison the minds of my son and grandson and are able to stand here and feign innocence where you know only guilt lay. You are a wicked woman, and how I wish I could run you through with my sword right here and now."
"My father would not suffer you to live."
"Your father knows his place before his king."
The two locked stares and remained in silence for many heartbeats. Mayela allowed a smile to creep onto her face, and it grew all the wider when Eothred's lips tightened. She could sense the hate he felt for her emanating off of his body, and she was sure he could feel the same.
"You did not ask me here to reopen old arguments," she said after enough time had passed. "What do you ask of my son?"
"You will not like it," he said, and she knew he enjoyed it. Eothred bent low to retrieve his chair, and then sat back down.
"You do not get everything you desire simply because you are the king," she reminded him, though surely she knew that he had not forgotten after all of these years.
"Leave it be, woman," he warned, and Mayela conceded with upraised hands.
"Since your son is unable to inherit lands or titles," he continued as he resumed with his letter writing, "A position must be found that is suitable for him. Aelenden is to be Summoned to the Sentinels to serve as protector of the family you have disgraced."
Mayela's jaw hung slack. She had not expected anything like this. Her stomach churned at the irony of Aelenden's sentence, a horrible joke played by the king at the expense of her only son. Eothred smiled and chuckled, further angering her, but she knew he had her beat.
"It is unprecedented," she began, forming her argument as the words spilled from her mouth, "For the children of royals to be given such a role, your ancestors would have never done similar."
"You are right, it is unprecedented," he admitted, and Mayela could tell by his smile that she had argued the exact point for which he had prepared. "Royal bastards have never been afforded such luxury, since they are usually killed long before their existence is known to the public."
"Gods," she said under her breath. "You would have him killed if you were certain it would never be linked back to you."
"If I wanted my grandson dead, he would be, I assure you."
"Then you have thought about it?"
Eothred paused long enough for Mayela to have her answer.
"He is hardly a warrior," she argued, searching for any possible escape. She knew Eothred felt tremendous pride in following and upholding the history of his people, so she continued to attack that angle. "You would have an incapable soldier standing guard over your family and tarnishing the legendary reputation of the Sentinels. Would you sleep easy at night knowing it was your decision that led to the degradation of such an historic order?"
"Just because one is drafted into the Sentinels does not mean he will survive the training. The Sentinels train for years before they are gifted their sword and armour, and those that do not have what it takes either quit of their own volition, or are brutally injured or killed during the training."
Mayela leaped into the opening Eothred had allowed her. "Then he will quit, and then he will be returned to my side."
"Those who quit are banished from the kingdom under pain of death."
Mayela winced at the blunt response. "And if he becomes a Sentinel do you not worry that I will have an agent amongst your personal guard?" Eothred's paranoia towards her remained her only option.
Eothred chuckled. "You said it yourself, Aelenden is no warrior. At best I allow him to quit his training before he is killed, and would banishment not be a fitting punishment for your son?"
He had her, she knew. It all made sense, absurdly so, for she held no doubts that Eothred had crafted this idea to produce that very result. She could feel everything slipping out from beneath her, as if the earth itself sundered only to swallow her up. The smell of the wax no longer reminded her of her childhood, but of the illicit letters she had written over the years. The wax reminded her of her failures, and of her hatred for this man before her.
"You have until the child turns seventeen to enjoy your last moments with him. The gates of the city are always open should you choose to run away, I swear to you that I will send no one after you, though neither will I hold anyone back. Eomen loves his son," he reminded her, dangling the threat before her.
Well played, you fucking coward. The thought of fleeing the kingdom altogether was inviting indeed. They could travel far to the south, to the enormous cities of Vrabelith or Invernell, even Iventa. or to the northeast and Tinurel.
Or Dothiam. Despite the gravity of the situation the corner of her mouth twitched with the slightest of smiles.
"And what of Eomen, what does he think of all this?"
"He does not yet know, though I suspect he will respect my decision. I am, after all, the king." He folded another letter and sealed it with his signet ring before handing it to Mayela, the wax still warm.
"The letter is for Aelenden, it is his Summoning," he explained. Mayela's hand shook as she grabbed the letter from Eothred. "You can give it to him and let him report, or you may burn it, the choice is yours. But should you choose to burn it I would advise you to be far away from the borders of my kingdom before Aelenden's seventeenth birthday, else the letter will not be the only thing that is burnt."
The letter felt heavy in her hands, as if she held a boulder instead of a piece of parchment. Her fingers traced the edges of the paper, and then the still-hot wax seal, burning her delicate fingers, though she hardly noticed. She licked her lips but her tongue held no moisture, yet it threatened to well up in her eyes.
Mayela stood up without asking leave of the king, her eyes staring straight ahead, seeing nothing. She left the room then, moving like a dead leaf scraping along floor in a soft wind, and behind her she could feel Eothred's smug smile, mocking her, taunting her.
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This is really good. I notice the strong Tolkien influence, especially with the names.
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Well done Jarlaxle. I got vibes of GoT and even the Farseer series by Robin Hobb.
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Wow thanks guys. I spoke about it in the Tolkien thread, but after I scrapped my 180 000 word project (which I do still have saved away), I made an effort to write more realistic scenes. I didn't want to write the battle where the hero cuts through 300 baddies with ease, like a black belt fighting children, but interactions between characters that reveal a lot more about their personal side and intentions. I think reading a Song of Ice and Fire really showed me that those types of scenes can be just as interesting as the more "fantasy" ones. I have never read any Robin Hobb, though I have books of his on my to-read list. I will probably bump them further up the queue now. :lol
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I have never read any Robin Hobb, though I have books of his on my to-read list. I will probably bump them further up the queue now. :lol
Robin Hobb is a lady.. ;) (I made that mistake too), but I think you might enjoy the Farseer Trilogy series. It's a medieval setting, with plenty of intrigue within the royal family. Though her style, and the "feel" of the books is completely different from GRRM.
This is the first book in the trilogy: https://www.robinhobb.com/book/assassins-apprentice/
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Yeah, that was good Jarlaxle. Interesting story.
The only critique I have is that the mood shifts felt a bit abrupt whenI read it and snapped me out of the flow at times. It feels like both characters shift back and forth from both ends of an emotional spectrum a bit too quickly. It made it seem slightly less focused than it could have been.
Other than that, intriguing stuff.
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Yeah, that was good Jarlaxle. Interesting story.
The only critique I have is that the mood shifts felt a bit abrupt whenI read it and snapped me out of the flow at times. It feels like both characters shift back and forth from both ends of an emotional spectrum a bit too quickly. It made it seem slightly less focused than it could have been.
Other than that, intriguing stuff.
Reading through it again I see what you mean, thanks for the tip! :tup
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I have never read any Robin Hobb, though I have books of his on my to-read list. I will probably bump them further up the queue now. :lol
Robin Hobb is a lady.. ;) (I made that mistake too), but I think you might enjoy the Farseer Trilogy series. It's a medieval setting, with plenty of intrigue within the royal family. Though her style, and the "feel" of the books is completely different from GRRM.
This is the first book in the trilogy: https://www.robinhobb.com/book/assassins-apprentice/ (https://www.robinhobb.com/book/assassins-apprentice/)
Don't forget they're cripplingly depressing :D
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My two short stories were finally printed. After struggling to find a publisher who wasn't trying to screw us, the woman decided to self-publish the book. Even though it's not through some big publishing company, I still feel like I accomplished something important to myself.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/1973528460/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Finally got back to writing a little again after taking a considerable break. Feels good. It's a lot of work but it feels good to be creative again. Of course, with such a long break comes the fact that I will want to go back change a lot, so now I have some rewriting to do. And I've already written over 100'000 words over 17 chapters so that'll be some work too.
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Does anybody know:
If you get a formal copyright on a piece of writing that you do, like registered with the US copyright office, do you have to write or document on the piece of work "copywritten" or any or is it just strait up protected?
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No idea if this will help you, or not. Hopefully it's worth a look: https://www.writing-world.com/rights/copyright.shtml Best of luck!
Today's not going well. Been consistently getting over a thousand words a day for the new novel this last week, but I seem to have hit a wall today. Hopefully I'll be able to trudge through, and at least get five hundred words. Sent out some queries for my last book back in September after getting a list of agents looking for new clients in an issue of Writer's Digest. A couple rejections, still waiting on the others to follow. Got a rejection letter a couple weeks ago for a novel I completed almost two years ago. That gave me a couple chuckles.
Anyway, new book is moving like a fucking snail, but at least things are getting done. I guess.
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Does anybody know:
If you get a formal copyright on a piece of writing that you do, like registered with the US copyright office, do you have to write or document on the piece of work "copywritten" or any or is it just strait up protected?
I am not an expert here, and you should seek a knowledgeable (in the field) attorney if you really need a hard answer, but my understanding is "no". "Copyright" protection is automatic with publication, actually. You do not need to register a work with the US. Patent and Trademark Office, but registering has tremendous benefits (it allows you to enforce the copyright in court, it changes the amount of damages you can recover, and puts the work out there to prevent others from even trying to infringe). Once registered, again, you are protected whether you do anything or not (caveat: if you do not defend your copyright from infringement, after a time you may lose the protection), but if you note your work as "copyrighted" you tend to minimize the number of potential infringements. Meaning, if your work is of marginal originality (a prerequisite for copyright protection) telling others that it has been deemed so may make others think twice from publishing their similar work. Does this make sense?
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Does anybody know:
If you get a formal copyright on a piece of writing that you do, like registered with the US copyright office, do you have to write or document on the piece of work "copywritten" or any or is it just strait up protected?
I am not an expert here, and you should seek a knowledgeable (in the field) attorney if you really need a hard answer, but my understanding is "no". "Copyright" protection is automatic with publication, actually. You do not need to register a work with the US. Patent and Trademark Office, but registering has tremendous benefits (it allows you to enforce the copyright in court, it changes the amount of damages you can recover, and puts the work out there to prevent others from even trying to infringe). Once registered, again, you are protected whether you do anything or not (caveat: if you do not defend your copyright from infringement, after a time you may lose the protection), but if you note your work as "copyrighted" you tend to minimize the number of potential infringements. Meaning, if your work is of marginal originality (a prerequisite for copyright protection) telling others that it has been deemed so may make others think twice from publishing their similar work. Does this make sense?
Completely disagree.
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Been on a roll these past few days. At this pace I might actually finish the second "episode" of the first book before the end of the month. That would be some serious progress.
As always I question the quality, but that's just part of the course it seems. At last something is happening again, so that's fun.
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I was on a good roll this past week, too. Passed 20,000 words yesterday. Today there was too much running around, and the damn NHL All-Star game being on in the afternoon instead of at night really fucked up my schedule. I might grab some words tonight. If not, then tomorrow is business as usual.
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How much do you guys write on average pet day? Both time and words.
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Yesterday was slow, so only about 200. The day before that I wrote more than 2’000, so anything in between there is pretty much a normal day, although I usually try to get at least 500. Think my record in a day was well above 6’000, but those days are extremely rare.
Time is harder to tell, maybe two or three hours total on a good weekday. Somewhat more if I get a free saturday or sunday.
I was on a good roll this past week, too. Passed 20,000 words yesterday. Today there was too much running around, and the damn NHL All-Star game being on in the afternoon instead of at night really fucked up my schedule. I might grab some words tonight. If not, then tomorrow is business as usual.
What are you working on?
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I'm lucky to get 500. I'm not a serious writer though, just doing this for fun. I'm struggling right now, though. I want to write a 100+ page story and give it as Christmas presents this year, but it's looking like it'll be Christmas 2019 at this point. :lol
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I go in spurts. While at university I find it difficult to A) find time to work on it, and B) actually work on it when I do have time, because I usually just want to relax and listen to music or play video games when I have free time.
I set a word count goal this year of 50,000. It's not a lot, but it's a goal that should be easily attainable to give myself a sense of progress and accomplishment that I need :lol Normally, when I'm writing my "rough" draft I spend way too much time trying to make it perfect the first time rather than just getting as much on the page (screen) and figuring out what's good and bad later, but lately I've been focusing on doing just that, and the last few days I've been able to write 500-700 words in under an hour.
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Working on a novel very, very, very loosely inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. That's all I can say about it right now. It is not going well. But I am confident I can get the first draft done in a couple more months. I think I'll trunk it, write another book, and then come back to this one once I have a better understanding of the beats I wanna hit with this one.
This book aside, I average 1,100-1,500 words a day. When I was working, I was still hitting those numbers on a daily basis (cutting out a social life and staying up late really helps). I got over 1,200 yesterday and a little over 1,100 today, so that puts me in a good mood (if I don't write for a couple days, or if I don't hit the quotas I like, I turn into a gigantic asshole and feel like a slacker). I try to write from two to three hours a day. That's average. Today, I hit those 1,100+ words in, I think, two hours. The majority of the rest of my day will be spent reading.
I'm hoping I can keep those numbers up and have this first draft done soon. This is my fifth novel, and it's like pulling teeth.
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Normally, when I'm writing my "rough" draft I spend way too much time trying to make it perfect the first time rather than just getting as much on the page (screen) and figuring out what's good and bad later
That's my problem too. I'm too self conscious about it, instead of just letting it flow and getting my thoughts onto paper. Another issue I have is letting my ego go and writing something even if it doesn't sound like something I'd say. I have to keep telling myself: Just Create!
How do you guys start out writing a novel or short story? Do you outline and get everything sorted, characters and all, or just get a basic outline and some characters and just see where it all takes you?
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I've had to take a different approach to this book and do some outlining, as well as a good amount of research notes. But usually, I don't plot or outline. I don't like it; I like finding out in 'real-time' all the little surprises that the characters discover. When it comes to ideas, I don't sit down to write until I have some room to run. Ideas, for me, have to bounce around in my head for a little while---could be weeks, months, even years---before I even sit down to start writing the first draft. I usually know something that's gonna happen in the beginning, I know something that's gonna happen in the middle, and I know something that's gonna happen in the end. Everything in between, I am completely in the dark, and it's then my job to take my characters and my idea and find out what those answers are.
As far as writing the first draft and how 'clean' it should be: Look, it's called a first draft for a reason. Nobody should be reading it but you. The point of the first draft is to just get the story down. You're gonna have to edit, anyway. I spend about four months on a first draft and then I spend another eight months (at least) going over the story, cleaning it up as much as I can. So when it comes to your first draft, write wht comes to mind, get your thoughts down, throw everything you can at your manuscript, and then worry about cleanliness and perfection later. That's what rewrites and revisions are for. If you always try to blow your wad on your first draft, chances are, you're never gonna get anything done.
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I came up with the characters to the story I'm currently working on when I was 12, more than ten years ago, and the story itself has sort of grown and matured around them since then. So I don't really have a system for how I plan a story since this is the only major one I've taken on and it just sort of happened by accident. This one began as just me and my childhood friends playing around and overtime just grew into a lot more.
I do write a lot of notes about moments throughout my planned series, probably planning out the story ahead of time more than WDADU does. I just don't like forgetting ideas, even small ones, so I write them all down. Like, I'm a bit more than a quarter done with the first book, but I have like 10'000 words of notes for book six, which I probably won't get to for many many years. The story changes all the time though as I write it, so I'm not completely restricting myself with the notes, so I'm sure much of the book six notes will be irrelevant once I get to it.
I've soon spent four years writing this version of the first book though, so I'm not sure my way of doing things are especially good or something to emulate. It's just a passion project I do in my spare time, so it'll just have to take the time it needs to naturally become what it's supposed to be.
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Finished episode 2 of the first book! Only 5 more to go. I now have 113'000+ words down so I'm starting to feel that I'm getting somewhere.
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Been on a pretty good roll these last couple days. Probably got around five thousand words done this week, if I could ballpark it. I wish I'd been able to get this thing rollin' back in November when I first started it, but whatever. I'll take what I can get. I still think I'm gonna let it sit for way longer than usual once the first draft is done. From first draft to the agent hunt it usually takes me about a year to complete a novel. But when I'm done the first draft, I usually let it sit for a month. This book is not turning out very well, at all. And I get the feeling that the vast majority of it is gonna have to be re-written from scratch. I'm not doing that right away. I'll end up eating my own head out of frustration. So what I think I'll do is try to write another book and come back to this one in another few months, or maybe even a year.
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What do you do once you've finished a book and it's time to publish? How does that even work?
Asking because it's a bit of a dream, of course, to get my work out there one day and am interested in how the process works.
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Well, when I'm done a book, it's time to hunt for a literary agent. So I have to write a query letter and offer the first five or ten pages (or whatever the agent prefers), and then see if they're interested. I've only gotten so far as to have a literary agent ask to read more material, only to turn me down.
I know a couple of the steps after that point, but nothing concrete, of course, since I haven't been represented by an agent yet. If you're looking for an agent to represent you, here's where you can look: https://www.agentquery.com/default.aspx
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Sooo...anybody still writing? I've started up again (yay).